DEL - Eisbären with a strong 6-point weekend

17 Nov 2013 | Markus Nisius

Eisbären Berlin beat Mannheim and Nürnberg on the weekend to show the league, they are still there.

For everybody who believed the champions Eisbären Berlin could already be crossed off the list of favorites for the title this year, there is breaking news: They are trying to fight back. And apparently they used the break last week to find together as a team, because they had a very strong weekend showing that they still belong in the league’s top group.

On Friday they hosted Adler Mannheim in O2-World, a team that had just finished off the job of getting back in touch with the league’s elite teams. But it took them a while to beat Mannheim. After Andre Rankel’s 1-0 lead, Mannheim took over the game and had a 2-1 lead themselves by the end of the second period. However, Daniel Weiß, TJ Mulock and Julian Talbot managed to get three more goals on the score sheet and Berlin could celebrate an important win.

Today they hosted yet another top team, Nürnberg’s Ice Tigers. And this time they didn’t leave any doubts that they are able again to beat anyone in the league. 6 goals by 6 different scorers - Nürnberg, the team that led the league for a long time in the beginning was simply hopeless today. The final score of 6-1 was a signal to the rest of the league.

But there is another team that had an equally strong weekend. The currently first placed team from Cologne could also collect the full amount of 6 points. And beating the Krefeld Penguins on Friday by a score of 6-1 wasn’t really less impressive than Berlin’s performance. Daniel Tjaernqvist assisted on three of the goals and was Köln’s top scorer.

After his 26 saves against Krefeld, Sharks’ goalie Danny aus den Birken added another 30 saves for a shutout today against Iserlohn, that had one of the most productive offensive teams early in the season, but lost fire power over the last weeks. Aus den Birken could not only get a shut-out, he also got an assist for the game-winning goal by Chris Minard. Later on the coach’s son Björn Krupp added a second goal to make it a 2-0 win for the Sharks.