Quick Glance: On paper, according to Websim’s “Team Evaluations,” Berlin has the better offense, defense, goalies, powerplay, penalty killing, coaches, depth … and everyone knows they have the better cheerleaders. But turn the page to General Manager and Bratislava has a huge advantage there. It showed during the regular season when the Eagles won 5…
Quick Glance: During the regular season, Munich showed they have a dangerous defense corps and two strong lines. In the playoffs, they are only seeing the best teams and Bern is one of them. The Bears’ top line of Nico Hischier, Sebastian Aho and Jake Debrusk will be a challenge to skate with but the…
Quick Glance: Belfast will need everything to go right to get past Minsk. Of course, they will need great goaltending from Braden Holtby or perhaps Alexander Salak. But they will also need to somehow force their way through Minsk’s rock-solid defense and pierce the Hussars’ strongest shield, Attila Adorjan. To do that, they will need…
Quick Glance: Two Northern Conference powerhouses will battle in Round 2. Helsinki seems to have the edge. They finished higher in the regular season (120 points to Copenhagen’s 106) and they have eliminated Copenhagen both times they met in the playoffs recently (Seasons 13 and 16). The Tridents will be facing a familiar face in…
Quick Glance: Mathew Barzal and Lisbon will be the first to find out if Calvin Pickard still has what it takes to push the Smurfs through the playoffs. He is penciled in as the starter for Game 1. After being the main man in Berlin for a decade and getting the team into 7 Cup…
Quick Glance: The Red Bulls finished 10th in the standings. Not among the elite teams. But they were 4th in the league in shots per game and 5th in shots against. That’s elite territory for sure. Their opponents, Milan, had the 2nd best powerplay in the EURO and they were 4th best at killing penalties.…
Quick Glance: One Slovakian team will advance to Round 2, that’s assured. And here’s an interesting stat about these two teams from the same nation: they not only had the exact same powerplay efficiency percentage during the season, but they also had identical penalty killing averages. If Kosice can get the Aleksander Barkov-to-Jake Guentzel thing…
Quick Glance: They are a short distance from each other – less than 2 hours by car – but Bern seems farther this season from the Lions’ perspective. The Bears seemed to shift into another gear halfway through the season and they only gained momentum from then on, finishing 3rd in the overall standings. They…
Quick Glance: These teams know each other well, but it’s been a while since they met in the playoffs. Oslo keeps losing to Minsk before they get the chance. But last season, Rose predicted the Outlaws would beat defending champion Helsinki in Round 1 and she was right. This season, Copenhagen was 3rd best in…
Quick Glance: Everyone expects this series to be Stockholm’s EEE Line against Attila Adorjan in the Hussars’ net. Maybe they will cancel each other out. And both teams’ best lines – in plus/minus – were their second lines (Pageau and Suzuki). So maybe it will come down to which team has the better depth. In…
