Revenge day in East Divison

01 Sep 2012 | Dennis Mende

All three teams who lost their first match against their domestic league rivals from East Division took revenge today. In the West still everything can happen with the first five teams being divided by just three points. Berlin gets first loss of their ET campaign.

North Division

Today the first of two derbies within 24 hours between Eisbären Berlin and Hamburg Freezers - both teams belong to the Anschutz Entertainment group - was played in the German capital. In front of 6,900 fans in the O2 World the Polar Bears missed a big opportunity to come really close to the Red Bull Salute qualification. In a close game it was Patrick Köppchen who opened the score for the guests from Hamburg already at 34:28. When Berlin's TJ Mulock received a two-minute penalty early in the third the following power play was converted by Gerrit Festerling who made it 0-2. Shortly after this Eisbären head coach Don Jackson took a timout to reorganize his team but with little effect. When the home side pulled out goalie Rob Zepp already with a couple of minutes to go for an additional attacker the pressure on German national goalie Dimitrij Kotschnew wasn't high enough and instead Thomas Oppenheimer found the open net for the third away goal of the Freezers at 58:42. Kotschnew earned a shutout against a rather disappointing Berlin squad. With a win tomorrow when both teams face each other in Hamburg, the Freezers even could draw level with their DEL rivals.

West Division

EV Zug also won the second game against their NLA competitors ZSC Lions, this time away. With the very first shot on target Josh Holden earned a very early lead for Zug at 01:14. Now the Lions started to find into the game and Jeff Tambellini scored the equalizer even before the first intermission - in powerplay. After the break Zug again was succesful with one of their first tries and Corsin Casutt get the lead back at 21:32. Reto Schäppi tied the match again in the ending phase of the period before recent addition to the Zug roster, Swedish player Linus Omark, made it 2-3 just one and a half minutes later. Yannick Blaser decided the match with his goal with ten minutes to go and let Zug get the group lead ahead of Ingolstadt.

After yesterday's spectacular last minute comeback Jokerit won another battle against HIFK. Today Jokerit faced far less difficulties to grab all three points. Teemu Pulkkinen and Ilari Filppula pathe the way for the Jokerit home win in the first period while Eero Somervuori had scored the equalizer for the guests from Helsinki at 11:30. The result of several fights in the first 20 minutes had as a result that a couple of players and both head coaches were ejected from the game action. Also Jokerit ended up with a 5 on 3 power play that was converted by Filppula who scored his second of the game for the 3-1 just after the first intermission. Now both sides calmed down and concentrated on playing hockey. In the end goals by Teemu Eronen and Ben Eaves in the third period decided the match for Jokerit. With 12 points now Jokerit still has best chances to enter the first spot in the group.

The Frölunda Indians and Färjestads BK faced each other for the second time in a row since yesterday and the match ended with the exact same result - a 3-2 shootout win for FBK. A late second-period lead through Christian Berglund was turned around by Doug Lynch and Magnus Kahnberg in the last 20 minutes in favour of hosts Frölunda Indians. When regular time was almost over and FBK had already pulled out their goalie they managed to get the equalizer through Rickard Wallin at 59:54. When the game went into the shooutout Chris Lee was the one to give the extra point to FBK that keeps them in a good position in the most exciting group with only a three-point difference between first and fifth spot. .

East Division

Brynäs had a solid 3-0 home win against Allsvenskan participant Djurgårdens IF. Two days after an unlucky away loss in the first match between the two sides, Brynäs scored through Sebastian Lauritzen, Jonas Nordqvist and Andreas Thuresson. Goalie Robin Rahm earned a shutout against DIF that was never in real danger.

TPS get the revenge against Tappara in another low-scoring game between the two teams. In Tampere Marko Anttila brought TPS in front already in the frist period but in the middle of the third Jussi Makkonen tied it. In the following overtime Corey Locke was the one to score the game winner for Turku.

A really strong last-period performance by SC Bern let the Swiss vice champions be the third team of East Division to get the revenge for a loss against their fellow countrymen from game 1. Mike Knoepfli and Michael Ngoy brought the guests from Fribourg twice in front with a goal in the first period by Pascal Berger for the SCB between. Two goals by Flurin Randegger (the second into the empty net) and one by Franco Collenberg were decisive in the ending phase of the match. Both teams now have 6 points and stay at the bottom of their division.