The 2021–22 Champions Hockey League was the seventh season of the Champions Hockey League, a European ice hockey tournament. The tournament was competed by 32 teams, with qualification being on sporting merits only. The six founding leagues were represented by between three and five teams (based on a four-year league ranking), while seven "challenge leagues" were to be represented by one team each.
Swedish team Rögle BK won their first Champions Hockey League title, defeating Finnish team Tappara 2–1 in the final. This made Rögle BK the sixth Swedish side to win the European Trophy and the first team in the history of the tournament to win the title in its first season. The title holders Frölunda HC were defeated by Rögle BK in the semi-finals with the total score 4–8.
American right winger Ryan Lasch from Swedish team Frölunda HC became the top scorer for the fourth time, scoring 18 points.
Team allocation
A total of 32 teams from different European first-tier leagues participated in the 2021–22 Champions Hockey League. Besides the Continental Cup champions, 24 teams from the six founding leagues, as well as the national champions from Norway, Denmark, France, Belarus, the United Kingdom, Poland and Ukraine could qualify. The qualification for these places was set out in the rules as follows:
CHL champions
National league champions (play-off winners) Regular season winners Regular season runners-up Regular season third-placed team Regular season fourth-placed team Regular season fifth-placed team
For the ICE Hockey League teams were picked in this order: League champions Regular season winners Pick Round winners Pick Round runners-up Losing playoff finalists
For the Deutsche Eishockey Liga teams were picked in this order: League champions North / South group winners with higher PPG North / South group winners with lower PPG North / South group runners-up with higher PPG North / South group runners-up with lower PPG
Teams
Round and draw dates
The schedule of the competition is as follows.
Group stage
For the group stage, the teams were drawn into 8 groups of 4 teams. Each team played home and away against every other team for a total of six games. The best two teams qualified to the round of 16.
The draw of the group stage took place on 19 May 2021.
Pots
Due to a scheduling conflict caused by the 2022 Winter Olympics final qualification tournament being held on 26–29 August 2021, eight teams from countries participating in the Olympic qualification (Austria, Denmark, France, Italy, Norway, Poland, Ukraine) were allocated into the pot 5 and drawn into two separate groups of four which did not play their games on the specified dates. There was no league protection for the teams from these two groups. The other 24 teams (from five remaining founding leagues as well as teams from Belarus and the United Kingdom as top two challenger leagues and 2019–20 IIHF Continental Cup winners SønderjyskE Ishockey) were allocated into four pots and drawn by the standard procedure into six groups of four.
Group A
Group B
Group C
Group D
Group E
Group F
Group G
Group H
Group stage tie-breaking criteria
Teams were ranked according to points (3 points for a win in regulation time, 2 points for a win in overtime, 1 point for a loss in overtime, 0 points for a loss in regulation time). If two or more teams were tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria were applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (see 8.4.4. Tie breaking formula group stage standings): Points in head-to-head matches among the tied teams; Goal difference in head-to-head matches among the tied teams; Goals scored in head-to-head matches among the tied teams; The higher number of goals in one of the matches among the tied teams; The most goals in the two game winning shot series; If more than two teams are tied, head-to-head criteria 1, 2 and 3 are reapplied exclusively to this subset of teams; If more than two teams are tied, and after applying head-to-head criteria 1, 2 and 3, a subset of teams are still tied, goal difference and goals scored then the results between each of the three teams and the closest best-ranked team outside the subset was applied; best-ranked team outside the sub-group was applied; The higher position in the 2019–20 Champions Hockey League club ranking; Goal difference in all group matches; Goals scored in all group matches; Regulation time wins in all group matches; Overtime wins in all group matches; Overtime losses in all group matches.
