The Augsburger Panther took to the ice for the first time ever at home in the Champions Hockey League as they welcomed Group C rivals Luleå Hockey to town. The Panther came in with two wins, one in the shootout and one in overtime from their road trip, while Luleå has a regulation win and a shootout loss to their name, with Augsburger being the team that beat them in the shootout.

The visiting side from Sweden were the first off the mark, young prospect Noel Gunler opened his CHL account inside the opening 10 minutes, going in alone against Markus Keller before ripping his shot into the back of the net. Not bad for a 17-year-old. The hosts did manage to respond later in the period as Matthew Fraser tied things up with his fourth goal of the tournament to make it a 1-1 tie at the end of the first period.

Coming out for the second, Luleå couldn’t have really asked for a better start. Just 49 seconds in and they had regained the lead after a nice shot by Arttu Ilomäki as he was patient on the play before lifting the shot past Keller, and then just a couple of minutes late they grabbed a third as Keller’s clearing attempt was swatted down by Isac Brännström who held onto the puck just long enough for Jonas Berglund to get into position, before playing a perfectly weighted saucer pass right on his tape for a goal at the back post to make it a 3-1 game early in the second period. Before the period was out both teams would trade a goal each, first up Augsburger cut the deficit to one through David Stieler before Robin Kovács scored for Luleå to take a 4-2 lead into the final 20 minutes.

The hosts continued to press through the third period and pull back to within one as Matt Fraser buried his second of the night, with a nice shot on the right wing that sailed over the glove of David Rautio and with time ticking away it looked as though the Swedish side would hold on for the win. Then in the final minute, a great rush down the wing by Mitch Callahan saw his shot stopped initially by Rautio, but the clearance attempt went right to the stick of Andrew LeBlanc who made no mistake in burying his opportunity, and after a review for goalie interference, the goal stood and we were off to overtime. Despite the Panther having a lot of chances in the extra session, Luleå were the ones skating away with the extra point after Petter Emanuelsson secured victory three minutes into overtime.