Fribourg-Gottéron weathered an early storm and eventually defeated HK Nitra 6-1 in a key game for both teams in the Champions Hockey League Playoff race.

Playing on the road, Nitra were the better team in the opening 10 minutes and opened the scoring just past the six-minute mark. Pressure in the attacking zone forced a turnover, and in all alone, Brett David Pollock buried a wrist shot from the slot.

Fribourg tied it just over four minutes later off the rush, as Jacob de la Rose fed Maximilian Streule, who picked a spot on the near side with a wrist shot past Matej Mironov.

Fribourg then took their first lead of the game with 36 seconds left in the opening frame. Controlling the puck in the Nitra zone, Anthony Richard was unable to finish on a great individual effort, but Henrik Borgström was able to fire home the loose puck in the slot.

After being back on their heels for much of the early part of the game, Fribourg were dominant in the second period. Just past the game’s midpoint, they had a chance to go up by two goals when Lucas Hedlund got a breakaway but was hauled down by Zach Osburn. Marinov then stopped Hedlund on the ensuing penalty shot.

Three minutes later, however, Fribourg did get the 3-1 goal when Hedlund centred in front to Sandro Schmid for the one-timer.

Entering the third period, Fribourg took firm control of the game on a great play by de la Rose, making a backhand pass from behind the net out front to Christoph Bertschy, who made no mistake.

Goals by Samuel Walser and Jamiro Reber rounded out the scoring, cementing the 6-1 scoreline and +3 points in the Regular Season Standings for the reigning Swiss champions.