Swept on Groundhog Day – Wolfsburg out

Düsseldorfer EG vs ERC Ingolstadt 2-5, series 1-3

Over the first period both teams gave an incredibly loud crowd something to cheer about as there were scoring chances aplenty. Still it took almost 16 minutes until one of them ended up in the net. Unfortunately for most people in the crowd it was the guest team striking first through Brandon Buck. At the halftime mark of the game Jared Ross intercepted a puck at the red line, which gave him a free way towards the goal and yet he had the overview to see that Brendan Brooks followed him and had the net open in front of him. Brooks did not let that chance go to waste. Four minutes later Daniel Kreutzer cut the lead in half on the powerplay for Düsseldorf, just to see his colleague from the national team, Thomas Greilinger reestablish the 2-goal margin shortly before the last break.

Brandon Buck and Drew Schiestel traded one more goal each in the last period and with time winding down Düsseldorf pulled Tyler Beskorowany. But without success. The last change to the score was left for Brandan Brooks and his second goal of the evening.

Wolfsburg Grizzly Adams vs Adler Mannheim 3-5, series 0-4

For 30 minutes the crowd in Wolfsburg saw an open game without any goals before Wolfsburg established another 3-0 lead in the late second period as we have seen it twice already in this series. The first goal came with credits to Marco Rosa, who first skated around his defender before he chipped the puck back in front of the goal where Matt Dzieduszycki waited to put it in the net. Two minutes later Norman Milley scored on the powerplay and the third goal was made by Sebastian Furchner with a powerplay ticking down from the middle of the slot. The question remained whether Wolfsburg could hold on to the lead this time after squandering the same lead twice before.

And indeed everyone started to worry when Glen Metropolit found Matthias Plachta on the far goal post in a 2-man advantage five minutes into the last period to break the shutout. A few minutes later Jochen Hecht got the puck in front of Felix Brückmann and lifted the puck over him with a technically perfect move he must have picked up somewhere in his long NHL career. Wolfsburg’s coach Pavel Gross immediately called a time-out. But his team could not fight of the Deja-vu. With 7 minutes to go Brandon Yip skates behind the goal and manages to get the puck to Kurtis Foster in the slot, who has all the time in the world to aim for the upper right corner and hit it in.

The drama should find an historic end when the last Mannheim attack had Kai Hospelt tipping in a pass from Jonathan Rheault into the goal and let behind the Mannheim fans celebrating and Wolfsburg fans in shock. An empty net goal followed to set the final result to 5-3 for Mannheim. The Eagles will now wait for their opponents in the final.

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