DEL - Ingolstadt keeps hope alive

The Kölner Haie seemed to have an answer to everything in this year’s play-offs so far and when they also became the first team to win in Ingolstadt on Saturday the Finals seemed to be over for some people already. But Ingolstadt is still hanging in there.

Game 3 started with a dirty goal by Jean-Francois Boucher for Ingolstadt after only 4 minutes finding the one spot on aus den Birken’s short side the puck could go through. Exactly what you need to shake off the disbelief in their own chances. If it wasn’t for those perfect answers the Sharks keep finding since the Play-Offs started: 23 seconds later Chris Minard already tied the game and from this moment on Köln started dominating. The only catch was they forgot to score another goal.

So in the second period the game became a bit less intensive from both sides until Marcel Ohmann was sent to the box and Ingolstadt could go on the powerplay. And as Köln ended Ingolstadt’s home streak on Saturday, today it was the Panthers time to do some damage to a streak of the Sharks. After 10 play-off games without any opponent scoring on the power-play against them, Derek Hahn found the back of the net and gave Ingolstadt a 2-1 lead for the last period.

Köln opened up their defense a bit and by the end of the period the Panthers used their chances to decide the game. First Robert Sabolic and then Patrick Köppchen with two open shots set the score to 4-1 for Ingolstadt.

The series will continue tomorrow in Bavaria and we’ll see if the Sharks still have some answers left.

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