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.