While we now know the two teams who'll contest the Champions Hockey League Final in 2019, there are also changes to the amount of teams some leagues will get in the 2019/20 competition.

Back in 2017/18 the Champions Hockey League introduced a new format with 32 teams and based on sporting merits only. Since then, the CHL League Ranking is used to allocate the number of places per league. There were no changes in the ranking in the first two years that affected the number of places a league will receive.

But now there is one - Switzerland has managed to climb up the ranking and overtake Finland. As the Swiss are now ranked second, they will get five places for the 2019/20 season (previously four) while the Finnish Liiga will be reduced to four.

The CHL League ranking is based on point per game in average, and while all Swiss teams went out in the Round of 16 their performance prior to elimination was strong enough to be second overall as a league in 2018/19 (1,88 points per game in average). Combined with their performances in the previous seasons, it was the key to finally overtake Finland and achieve one more place for next season.

Another country which can hope for more CHL places next season is Germany. Thanks to the success of Red Bull Munich and their qualification for the CHL Final, the DEL has currently overtaken the Czech Republic and is now ranked fourth after the Semi-Finals. If the Germans can keep this spot it would bring them four places next season, while the Czech Republic would lose one place as they are now only fifth. The outcome of this will go down to the wire in the CHL Final - a win for Red Bull Munich is needed in regulation, otherwise the CHL League Ranking will be reversed again and the Czech Republic will be able to keep their position and the four places they received in previous seasons.

The CHL League Ranking calculates the performance of teams over each CHL season and the better the teams perform, the more places a league can achieve. For calculating the index, four consecutive CHL seasons are taken into consideration (weighted 100, 75, 50 and 25 percent – in which the newest season counts the most). However, the six founding leagues remain ranked 1-6 while all challenger leagues follow.