Iserlohn Roosters steal win in Hamburg

Hamburg Freezers vs Iserlohn Roosters 3-4 (Playoff 1-2)

Hamburg tried to come out strong as they have seen on Wednesday in Iserlohn that home games will be very important in this series. But after 5 minutes Iserlohn had a breakaway on which Dusan Frosch fired the puck over the goal, but the puck bounced back right in front of Alex Foster, who could slap it into the wide open net. After that Iserlohn followed a defensive strategy and played a very narrow box.
The coach’s words in the break might have been a bit louder on Hamburg’s side. At least David Wolf didn’t want to waste time with getting the equalizer and did the job in 11 seconds. Hamburg kept pressuring, but nothing materialised for another 15 minutes. Then the game got wild. Another breakaway for Iserlohn, Brodie Dupont sees Martin Sertich, who tries once, gets his own rebound and hammers that one in. Iserlohn back on top. But not for long: Hamburg on the counterattack: David Wolf, Jerome Flaake and Garrett Festerling with a spectacular tic-tac-toe throught the whole Roosters defense and suddenly it is 2-2. Half a minute after that: Martin Sertich returns the favor to Brodie Dupont and Iserlohn back in the lead. The biggest problem on the Freezers’s side was the lack of efficiency.
And this problem should continue in the last period. Again Hamburg pressures, but it is Iserlohn, who scores. Brent Raedeke with a shot from the blue line, 4-2. David Wolf could get back within one with a deflection of Kevin Schmidt’s blue line shot and get his third point of the night, but that was it. Iserlohn steals game 3 in Hamburg and will try to defend the home advantage now back in Iserlohn on Sunday.

Adler Mannheim vs Kölner Haie 2-1 OT (Playoff 1-2)

Köln started the game on the right foot. Only 47 seconds into the game Chris Minard scored and gave the Sharks an important advantage in this really tight series. Following this goal the Sharks took over the game. Almost at half time of the game Jonathan Rheault showed a nice move to beat Danny aus den Birken and evened the game. Now it was Mannheim’s turn to shine. However, no more goals were scored and the game went into overtime again. This time they even made it into the second overtime, but then everything went quite fast. Simon Gamache didn’t even need two minutes to score the game-winner and give Mannheim the first win of the series.

Nűrnberg Ice Tigers vs Grizzly Adams Wolfsburg 5-2 (Playoff 1-2)

After two very clear games in favor of Wolfsburg, one could feel that Nűrnberg did not want to continue like that and was on fire. Over the two first periods the Ice Tigers put up a shot differential of 25-10. The first goal though should not come until the 28:25 mark on the power-play from Yasin Ehliz. It was the first time in this series that Nűrnberg was in the lead. And they build on that in the early third period. Patrick Reimer and Leinhard Pföderl with the 3-0. It looked as if the Ice Tigers could finally bring home an easy win. But Wolfsburg came back. Within one minute Alexander Polaczek and Marco Rosa cut the gap to only one goal. Now it was a test of character. And Nűrnberg responded well. Evan Kaufmann managed to get the fourth goal and with the empty net Patrick Reimer scored his second of the night to finalise the 5-2 win for the Ice Tigers. Steven Reinprecht assisted on three goals.

Krefeld Pinguine vs ERC Ingolstadt 2-3 OT (Playoff 1-2)

The question in this game was whether Ingolstadt can keep up the momentum from Wednesday or if Krefeld can use their fanatic fans to their advantage. Thomas Greilinger was the first one trying to give an answer. In the first power-play after three minutes he gave Ingolstadt the lead, but Herberts Vasiljevs was eager to return the favor three minutes later. After 15 minutes Francois Methot gave the penguins‘ fans the first lead to celebrate. In the second period the game got a bit rougher again and the panthers found themselves a bit more often in the penalty box, what didn’t slow them down though. Patrick Hager managed to even the score short-handed midway through the second period. In the last period Krefeld put immense pressure on Ingolstadt with a shot record of 14-3, but nothing ended up in the net and so the teams had to go to overtime.
Three minutes into overtime collected his third point oft he night by setting up Robert Sabolic’s game-winner that gives Ingolstadt the lead in the series.

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