DEL Play Offs - Köln and Wolfsburg win on the road

Adler Mannheim vs Kölner Haie  0-1

It was exactly the game that most people expected. High intensity and two teams that had enough respect for the opposition to know that the most important thing is to focus on defense first. Consequently there were not too many penalties and a lot of 5-on-5 hockey. The goal of the day came midway through the second period when Mannheim turned over the puck on the own blue line to John Tripp who saw Rob Collins starting into a 2-on-1 rush. Collins got the puck and gave a perfect feed to Philip Gogulla, who could convert into an almost open net. For Gogulla being the game-winner was a special treat as it was Mannheim’s coach Hans Zach, who publicly criticised him a lot when he was his coach in Cologne.

The other game-winner on Cologne’s side was goalie Danny aus den Birken, who kept his calm over the whole game and stopped all 40 shots the Adler threw at him.

Nűrnberg Ice Tigers vs Grizzly Adams Wolfsburg  1-4

Wolfsburg surprised Nuremberg with a good start and could score 2 goals in the first 10 minutes. Sebastian Furchner used the first power-play opportunity after 9 minutes and just 38 seconds later Chad Bassen set the score to 2-0. One more goal should follow in the second period by Norman Milley. The Ice Tigers needed 57 minutes to score their first goal of the series. But Fredrik Eriksson's marker came too late. Sebastian Furchner could add an empty net goal and in the end Wolfsburg won 4-1.

Hamburg Freezers vs Iserlohn Roosters  4-1

Iserlohn might have still been a bit powered out from their tough series against Munich when Hamburg ran over them in the first 5 minutes. Thomas Oppenheimer scored 75 seconds into the game and Garrett Festerling followed his example at the 5:20 mark. Of course, against the top team from the regular season this is already a big burden. And Hamburg kept up the pressure. In the end they should fire an incredible 54 shots at Mathias Lange. Two more of those should end up in net, both by David Wolf, who picked up 3 points in the game. Former Iserlohn goalie Sebastien Caron, who is in the Freezers‘ net now, was already looking forward to a shut out when Thomas Gödtel could finally get past him with a bit more then one and a half minute to go.

Krefeld Pinguine vs ERC Ingolstadt 5-0

In the toughest match of the day Ingolstadt shared Iserlohn’s destiny of still struggling from the pre-play-off series, in which they kicked out champion Berlin. In the first period David Fischer and Christian Kretschmann established a 2-0 lead for Krefeld. After a great start into the second period by Krefeld scoring 2 more goals in the first three minutes through Adam Courchaine and Martin Schymainski the referees almost lost control over the game. Tim Conboy of Ingolstadt was ejected and 9 other players got penalties of 14 minutes and more. Only when Herberts Vasiljevs scord the 5-0 on the power-play after 32 minutes it seemed as if the game could continue in civilised way. But the match-ups for the rest of the series have been established and we’ll see if there are more fights on Wednesday.

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