The Rouen Dragons played host to Red Bull Salzburg to start their playoff run after their second-place finish in Group F, while their Austrian opponents came in as Group G champions following a late surge in their group stage campaign.

Despite the odds being against the French side, they were the first on the board in this clash, Marc-André Thinel had a partial breakaway and made no mistake, firing his shot past the blocker of Stephen Michalek to give the hosts the lead.

Just over a minute later, however, the visitors were out to crash the party. Peter Hochkofler was on the doorstep to knock in a rebound after Mario Huber put a speculative backhand effort towards net.

Moments later and Salzburg were celebrating again. This time Chris Vandevelde was the man getting the goal, despite not getting all of his shot after a cross-crease pass from Robert Raymond, the puck managed to find its way past Matija Pintarič in the Dragons net.

With the visitors ahead on the scoreboard, Nicolas Deschamps managed to grab a late one in the first to completely change what the coaches would have to say in their team talks, finishing off a quick rush up ice to slot his shot home on the back hand.

Just two more goals followed in the second period, firstly through a Rouen powerplay goal from Nicolas Ritz tapping in the puck after a scramble in the crease and then late in the period Martin Štajnoch pulled off a fancy move to handcuff Pintarič for the game tying goal, making it three a piece at the end of two, and with no further action the two sides head into next weeks clash still level on the score sheet.