The Czechs in the CHL: two good news and a bad one

The first Round of 16 week of the Champions Hockey League has been pretty interesting for the Czech teams, with two of them facing national champions (Finland's Kärpät and Switzerland's HC Davos) and the remaining one having to play against the possibly strongest SHL team at the moment (Frölunda). All three teams played on home ice.

Let's begin with the latter pairing. Litvínov, who won the Czech national title itself during last season, started pretty slowly, but was lucky enough to find a tired and offensively ineffective Swedish side on its ice. After a scoreless first period, the team from northern Bohemia first scored with Karel Kubát, himself a native of the area, but suffered in the last part of the game thanks to a powerplay goal by Andreas Johnson. The decisive goal was again scored by the Czechs, who profited of another powerplay, this time in their favour, with Robin Hanzl violating the opponents' net.

Sparta Praha faced Kärpät, suffering an early goal by Nutivaara. Two further goals, both for the capital city's team, came on the next period being scored by Daniel Pribyl and the Slovak Michal Cajkovský, respectively. Lukás Cingel and veteran Jaroslav Hlinka were the authors of the last two goals for Sparta, despite another score by Kärpät in the middle of the third period (made by Jani Hakanpää).

Davos proved to be too strong for Liberec, scoring five times (three during the first period). Captain Andres Ambühl was the best player on ice, scoring two goals and providing one assist. The White Tigers of Liberec only wake up in the last part of the game, having scored only once in the first one. Branko Radivojevic, the Slovak right wing of Serbian origins, scored twice, while Michal Repík, an AHL veteran who also played briefly with the Florida Panthers, scored a consolation goal with just forty seconds to go. Interestingly enough, he played last year in the NLA with EV Zug. Given the strenght displayed by Davos tonight, Liberec will have to work hard upon the next game in Kanton Graubünden...

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