Ice Tigers start big into Playoffs

Leonhard Pföderl had a Playoff start as every player dreams about. The Ice Tigers forward needed only 18:33 minutes in Game 1 of the Pre-Playoffs, which are played in a Best-of-3 series in Germany’s DEL, to score his first 2 goals of the campaign and shock Berlin’s star team, which experienced another disappointing season and has to go through the first round again this year. But Pföderl wasn’t the only Tiger to be awake right from the start. Only 27 seconds away from the first intermission Patrick Reimer raised the score to 3-0. A huge blow for the Eisbären, especially in a Best-of-3 series.

And it shouldn’t get much better in the second period. Corey Locke set the gap to 4 goals after 33 minutes and it was only then when Berlin got a goal on their side of the scoresheet when 16 seconds later Frank Hördler made it 4-1. But Corey Locke must have liked the 4-goal lead as he setup Kyle Klubertanz on a powerplay with four and a half minutes to go in the second frame to make it 5-1.

In the last period both team traded one goal each and so Nürnberg got the 1-0 series lead and can already secure its quarterfinal spot on Friday when they travel to Berlin. The sixth goal for Nürnberg was quite mentionable though as Pföderl got his hattrick, while both Corey Locke and Connor James got their 4^th point of the night.

In the second series in Wolfsburg things were much closer. The fortune shifted back and forth and Krefeld had the better start. After 8:36 minutes Joshua Meyers got the lead for Krefeld only to see it fade away 59 seconds later when Sebastian Furchner converted a powerplay. But Marcel Müller, who arrived in Krefeld during the season from Köln, got the Penguins back in the lead in the final minute of the first period.

It took Wolfsburg until midway through the second period to equalise again through Christoph Höhenleitner, but this time Krefeld did not want to let their opponents celebrate too long. 14 seconds after the Grizzly’s goal Marcel Müller reinstated the lead for Krefeld.

Both teams turned towards a more defensively oriented system now and so it took the Grizzlys until the 49^th minute, in which Marco Rosa could score the last goal in regulation to bring the game to overtime.

The hero of the night turned out to be Wolfsburg’s Tyler Scofield, who managed to get a 4^th goal behind Tomas Duba and make it a great first playoff day for the home teams. Berlin and Krefeld will look to do the same on Friday in order to have a real do-or-die game on sunday.

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