Tomorrow is September 1st, and, for Marco Kasper, Theodor Niederbach and William Wallinder‘s Rogle BK, as well as Liam Dower Nilsson‘s Frolunda HC, the 2022-2023 season will begin via games played in the Champions Hockey League.
The CHL is something of a promotional circuit, but the games count for bragging rights and bucks, and, as IIHF.com’s Derek O’Brien notes, the two teams which represent the “Red Wings East” will be playing tomorrow:
The first game to face off will be at 18:05 CET when Rogle Angelholm from Sweden visits Polish champion GKS Katowice to begin its title defence. Another notable opening-night fixture is four-time champion Frolunda Gothenburg from Sweden hosting Czech club Mountfield Hradec Kralove in a rematch of the 2019/20 final.
The 32 teams that have qualified for the competition this season come from 13 leagues and a record 14 countries. Leading the way are Sweden and Switzerland with five teams each, followed by Finland and Germany with four each, Czechia with three, Austria and Poland with two, and one each from Denmark, France, Great Britain, Hungary, Norway, Slovakia and Slovenia.
This is the first time that two teams will represent Poland, with Cracovia Krakow qualifying by winning the 2022 IIHF Continental Cup. Also for the first time, Hungary and Slovenia will be represented by Fehervar AV19 and Olimpija Ljubljana, who both play in the Austrian-based ICEHL.
O’Brien also summarizes the tournament’s format:
During the group stage, which begins Thursday and finishes on 12 October, each team plays its three group opponents once each home and away for a total of six games. At the conclusion of the group stage, the top two teams from each group advance to the knockout stage, which consists of three rounds – the round of 16 in November, the quarter-finals in December and semi-finals in January – in which teams are paired off and play two-game, home-and-away series, after which the winner on aggregate score advances.
The two semi-final winners advance to the one-game final, which this year for the first time will be played on a Saturday, 18 February.
Continued; I’m not certain how widely these games will be televised outside of Europe, so you and I may have to resort to bootleg streaming sites to peek in on the games.
Again, the CHL isn’t technically “real hockey” per se, but the exhibition games count for bragging rights and bucks, and with the SHL slated to start on September 17th, the CHL games are going to keep the Wings’ youngsters fresh, and as well as afford them chances to step up and make their cases for bigger and better spots in their teams’ respective lineups.
Heading back to the topic at hand, IIHF also posted a 2:34 Twitter video setting up tomorrow’s games, and, again, aggregate goals in a series = a series win, so this is a situation where you see lop-sided scores for the sake of winning games that teams “lose”:
The 2022/2023 @championshockey season is here!
Everything you need to know about what to expect ➡️ https://t.co/lVFDnrh7xt pic.twitter.com/O5FSaEo93C— IIHF (@IIHFHockey) August 31, 2022
Rogle, where Marco Kasper is the 2nd line center, Niederbach is the 3rd line center, and Wallinder player on the second defensive pairing, will be wearing a special jersey with gold accents as the defending champion. Wallinder happens to be the model thereof in a Tweet from the hockey team:
Guld och gröna … tröjor! #roglebk #CHL #ChampionsGoBeyond pic.twitter.com/5j8WIS6cwT— Rögle BK (@roglebk) August 31, 2022
Don’t worry, Wallinder hasn’t changed his #54…
Och nej, Wallinder har inte bytt nummer. Han har fortfarande 54 – men den var på tryck just då 🎯— Rögle BK (@roglebk) August 31, 2022
On Frolunda, Liam Dower Nilsson has been playing on the 3rd line alongside 40-year-old Joel (fraternal twin of Henrik) Lundqvist and Max Friberg, but LDN is earning power play time thus far.
Scratch that: Rakapuckar’s Henrik Lehman reports that Dower-Nilsson has been promoted to the second line, but won’t play on the power play.
While we’re setting up the prospects’ season to come, in the KHL, Red Wings prospect and 2022 draft pick Dmitri Buchelnikov got a shout-out in the KHL’s English-language website’s preview of SKA St. Petersburg, the team that he’s trying to earn a spot on.
Youngsters: SKA works hard to accumulate prospects in its system. Even after the Nikishin trade, which sent a host of youngsters to Spartak, Petersburg still has plenty of rising stars.
The brightest of them is Matvei Michkov. This 17-year-old forward can score in any situation and his lacrosse goals are already something of a trademark. In the JHL, Michkov played alongside Dmitry Buchelnikov. The latter is a fast, mobile forward who shoots right – a summary to frighten any goalie. His stats back that up: last season Buchelnikov had 50 goals in the JHL, nine of them in the playoffs. Buchelnikov’s pre-season contribution suggests he is ready for a chance in the first team.
There are also players older than Michkov and Buchelnikov, but still firmly in the junior ranks. Marat Khusnutdinov is the most notable of these. Just 20 years old, he is already a big player for SKA and during the summer he even wore the ‘C’ in some warm-up games.
Right now, the plan is for Buchelnikov is slated to head back to SKA-1946 of the MHL (per EliteProspects), the Russian Under-20 league, but as you know by now, he’s had a great preseason.
We’ll have to wait and see whether Buchelnikov is in the KHL team’s lineup on Saturday when SKA opens their regular season vs. Salavat Yulaev Ufa.
