Thanks to a huge 39-save performance from netminder Niklas Treutle, the THOMAS SABO Ice Tigers won their first-ever Champions Hockey League game in Hradec Králové over Mountfield HK.

Buoyed by a large and energetic group of travelling fans from Nuremberg, the Ice Tigers made the most of their early chances and capitalized on some sloppy defensive-zone coverage twice in the first 5:21, with Leonhard Pföderl and Eugen Alanov putting the visitors up 2-0. Mountfield tried to mount an attack after that for the rest of the first period and start of the second, finally getting on the board near the game’s midpoint when Juraj Bezúch batted an airborne puck past Treutle, but that’s the only puck that would beat him the whole night. His opposite number, Jaroslav Pavelka, stopped 14 of 16 shots.