| Tourney Name: | Champions Hockey League |
| Year: | 2014–15 |
| Num Teams: | 44 |
| Type: | other |
| Winners: |  Luleå HF |
| Count: | 1 |
| Second: | Frölunda HC |
| Games: | 161 |
| Attendance: | 490848 |
| Scoring Leader: |  Mathis Olimb[1] |
| Points: | 26 |
| Mvp: | Mathis Olimb[2] |
| Prevseason: | 2013 (European Trophy) |
| Nextseason: | 2015–16 |
The 2014–15 Champions Hockey League was the first season of the Champions Hockey League, a European ice hockey tournament launched by 26 founding clubs, six leagues and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF).
The regulation round began on 21 August 2014 and ended on 8 October 2014. The playoffs began on 4 November 2014 and ended with the Champions Hockey League Final on 3 February 2015. Luleå HF defeated Frölunda HC 4–2 to win the first edition of Champions Hockey League.
On 9 December 2013, the IIHF officially announced that they had launched the Champions Hockey League tournament, starting in the 2014–15 season. The season's format was revealed on 20 December 2013, during the playoffs of the 2013 European Trophy.
A total of 44 teams from eleven different European first-tier leagues participated in the 2014–15 Champions Hockey League. The teams were decided with regards to different licenses for the founding teams, leagues and wildcards.[3] [4]
The participating teams were decided with regards to different licenses for founding teams, league teams (from founding leagues) and other wildcard teams.[5]
A full list of the teams participating in the inaugural season and how they qualified was presented on 10 May 2014.[5]
The schedule of the competition is as follows.[13] [14] [15]
| Phase | Round | Draw date | First leg | Second leg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Group stage | Matchday 1 | 21 May 2014, 12:00 CET[16] | 21–22 August 2014 | |
| Matchday 2 | 23–24 August 2014 | |||
| Matchday 3 | 4–5 September 2014 | |||
| Matchday 4 | 6–7 September 2014 | |||
| Matchday 5 | 23–24 September 2014 | |||
| Matchday 6 | 7–8 October 2014 | |||
| Playoff | Round of 16 | 10 October 2014, 12:00 CET[17] | 4 November 2014 | 11 November 2014 |
| Quarter-finals | 2 December 2014 | 9 December 2014 | ||
| Semi-finals | 13 January 2014 | 20 January 2015 | ||
| Final | 3 February 2015 | |||
See main article: 2014–15 Champions Hockey League group stage. The group stage draw took place on 21 May 2014 in Minsk, Belarus, and the teams were assigned to eleven groups from A to K.[18] The 44 teams were allocated into four pots based on their positions in their national leagues 2014, with the top seeded teams being placed in Pot 1 and the lower ranked teams in Pot 2, Pot 3 and the lowest ranked teams in Pot 4.[19] They were drawn into eleven groups of four, with the restriction that teams from the same association could not be drawn against each other.[16]
In each group, teams played against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format, giving six games per team. In total, 132 games were played in the group stage.[13]
The schedule was released on 2 June 2014, with 30 of 44 teams playing their first game 21 August 2014, and the other teams playing their first game the following day. The match days were 21–22 August, 23–24 August, 4–5 September, 6–7 September, 23–24 September and 7–8 October 2014. All game times are local times.[14] [20]
The 11 group winners and the five best ranked runners-up qualified for the playoffs.[13] The five best runners-up were determined by ranking all runners-up based on their number of points and goal differential in their respective groups, explained more detailed in the detailed group stage article.[21]
See the detailed group stage page for tiebreakers if two or more teams are equal on points.
For tiebreakers if two or more teams are equal on points, see the detailed group stage page.
See main article: 2014–15 Champions Hockey League playoffs.
In the playoffs, the teams played against each other over two legs on a home-and-away basis with the team with the better standing after the group stage having the second game at home, except for the one-match final played at the venue of the team with the best competition track record leading up to the final.
The mechanism of the draw for playoffs are as follows:
Note:
The draw for the entire playoff (round of 16, quarter-finals, semi-finals and final) was held on 10 October 2014.[17] The first legs were played on 4 November, and the second legs were played on 11 November 2014.[15] [22]
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The first legs were played on 2 December, and the second legs were played on 9 December 2014.[15]
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The first legs were played on 13 January, and the second legs were played on 20 January 2015.[15]
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The final was played on 3 February 2015 at the venue of the team with the best competition track record leading up to the final.[13] [15]
Rankings based upon points, and sorted by goals.[23]
| Rank | Player | Team | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mathis Olimb | Frölunda HC | 10 | 7 | 17 | 24 | 6 | +11 | |
| 2 | Andreas Johnson | Frölunda HC | 9 | 11 | 12 | 23 | 6 | +13 | |
| 3 | Erik Gustafsson | Frölunda HC | 10 | 5 | 12 | 17 | 2 | +7 | |
| 4 |  Matt D'Agostini | Genève-Servette | 8 | 4 | 9 | 13 | 6 | +7 | |
| 5 | Daniel Zaar | Luleå HF | 10 | 6 | 6 | 12 | 0 | +4 | |
| 6 | Max Görtz | Frölunda HC | 10 | 5 | 7 | 12 | 0 | +5 | |
| 7 | Pär Lindholm | Skellefteå AIK | 10 | 1 | 11 | 12 | 2 | +10 | |
| 8 |  Joonas Donskoi | Kärpät | 10 | 7 | 4 | 11 | 2 | +11 | |
| 9 | Niklas Fogstrom | Luleå HF | 10 | 5 | 6 | 11 | 0 | +9 | |
| 9 | Per Ledin | Luleå HF | 10 | 5 | 6 | 11 | 4 | +5 |
Goalkeepers with 40% or more of their team's total minutes, ranked by save percentage.[24]
| Rank | Goaltender | Team | Minutes | Saves | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Luka Gračnar |  Red Bull Salzburg | 300:00 | 5 | 1.00 | .966 | 141 | 2 | |
| 2 | Melvin Nyffeler | Fribourg-Gottéron | 243:11 | 6 | 1.48 | .957 | 133 | 1 | |
| 3 |  Marek Schwarz | Bílí Tygři Liberec | 211:25 | 5 | 1.42 | .956 | 109 | 0 | |
| 4 | Joel Lassinantti | Luleå HF | 257:12 | 5 | 1.17 | .948 | 91 | 0 | |
| 5 | Justin Pogge | Färjestads BK | 290:36 | 7 | 1.45 | .940 | 109 | 0 | |
| 6 | Marcus Högberg | Linköpings HC | 362:35 | 10 | 1.65 | .933 | 143 | 0 | |
| 7 | Mantas Armalis | Djurgårdens IF | 246:14 | 8 | 1.95 | .933 | 112 | 1 | |
| 8 | Iiro Tarkki | Kärpät | 304:55 | 7 | 1.38 | .931 | 95 | 1 | |
| 9 | Stefan Steen | Växjö Lakers | 199:20 | 5 | 1.51 | .931 | 67 | 0 | |
| 10 | Eero Kilpeläinen | KalPa | 303:48 | 11 | 2.17 | .930 | 146 | 1 |
The 44 teams competed for a grand total of 1.5 million euros. However, the money distribution was not announced.
