DEL – Kölner Haie grab lead in the Finals

Sometimes 3 minutes are enough to decide a hockey game and you could skip the rest. Looking at the scoresheet of the first DEL Final on Thursday night you might think it was one of those games. But the matchup between the Sharks and the Panthers from Ingolstadt was an amazing game long before both teams decided to start scoring in the late second period.

Right from the start you could see smaller scrambles and after 5 minutes Köln showed a first power play on even strength. But Timo Pielmeier saved all shots faced in this period. Later on Ingolstadt had some scoring chances but Danny aus den Birken showed the same class. So the fans had to wait until 35th minute when Gogulla skated over the blue line and left the puck for Rob Collins, who blasted the puck in the upper right corner. One minute later Gogulla himself could set the score to 2-0. And another 2 minutes later Rob Collins scored the goal of the night: Tjaernqvist found Weiss on the blue line with a chip pass all across the neutral zone, Weiss found Collins, who still had the nerves and time to skate around Pielmeier to get an empty net. At this point the game seemed done, but only 10 seconds later – the Sharks‘ fans were still celebrating – Greg Claassen was left alone on the right side of aus den Birken and could get one back. And with one minute to go Robert Sabolic picked up a lose puck in the slot and went top shelf. 3-2 within 5 minutes. A spectacular game.

Early in the third period Christoph Gawlik had the huge chance to tie the game, when he found himself on a break away alone in front of aus den Birken, but he missed and on the counterattack it was Chris Minard, who achieved the final score as Ingolstadt could not materialize on their 2 minute attempt with an open net in the end.

Köln now leads the Final Series 1-0 and could get the second one on Saturday in Ingolstadt.