Skellefteå AIK and Oceláři Třinec face off in the Round of 16 as the fifth and 12th seeds from the Champions Hockey League’s Regular Season. While that might seem like a big gap, it should be noted that Skellefteå recorded only two more points than Třinec, and many of their team statistics are comparable.
- Both teams finished Regular Season with 3 straight wins
- Třinec's Libor Hudáček is CHL's Top Scorer with 10 points
- Both teams are previous CHL Semi-Finalists
Historically, both of these teams have a fair bit of CHL experience and some success, with the Semi-Finals being the high-water mark for both. For Skellefteå AIK, that came back in 2014/15, while for Třinec it was 2017/18. This will be the first time that the two teams have met head-to-head, however.
This season, both teams started slowly but finished the Regular Season strong to make the Playoffs.
Skellefteå started with three home games – a 4-0 home win over Red Bull Salzburg was followed by a couple of one-goal losses to Dynamo Pardubice and the Rouen Dragons. Their season was in doubt at that point but they took care of business with three straight road wins over Tappara Tampere, HC Košice and HC Innsbruck took them to 12 points.
Třinec started with a wild 7-6 overtime loss at home to the Rapperswil-Jona Lakers, then lost in regulation to Red Bull Munich and Ilves Tampere. With just one point in three games, Třinec also finished with three straight regulation wins over the Lahti Pelicans, Stavanger Oilers and Aalborg Pirates.
Offensively, Třinec outscored Skellefteå 21-18 despite Skellefteå having more expected goals (20.92-18.81). That was due in part to Skellefteå’s surprisingly impotent powerplay, which fired at just 6.33 percent, while Třinec’s hummed along at 18.18. With only 11 goals against, Skellefteå were tied for second-best in the Regular Season.
Individually, Třinec’s Libor Hudáček led the entire CHL Regular Season with 10 points, while Skellefteå was led by seven from Linus Lindström. Skellefteå’s Petter Granberg leads the competition with a +7 rating, followed by Lindström at +6, while Adam Polášek tops Třinec at +5. Polášek also leads his team in ice time with 19:57 per game, while Skellefteå captain Jonathan Pudas is eighth in the CHL in that department at 22:36 per game.
Třinec is one of the CHL’s top shot-blocking teams, with defencemen Jakub Jeřábek and Adam Smith leading the way with 13 each. Elias Salomonsson, Skellefteå’s 19-year-old Winnipeg Jets prospect, has seven blocked shots in just four CHL games.
During the CHL Regular Season, veteran David Rautio played in four of Skelleftea’s six games but in the SHL the main man between the pipes so far has been Linus Söderström. Třinec’s starting netminder is Marek Mazanec, who backstopped Mountfield Hradec Králové to the CHL Final in 2019/20.
There's not much to split these two experienced European teams. We could have a high-scoring game, we could have a cagey affair.