The semi-final duels for the German ice hockey championship with the top clubs EHC Red Bull Munich and Adler Mannheim are completely open again. The eight-time title holder Mannheim missed the desired third win against ERC Ingolstadt with a narrow 0:1 (0:0, 0:1, 0:1) on Thursday evening and had to accept the 2:2 series equalization.
Main round winner Munich, meanwhile, avoided a significant series deficit with difficulty. Coach Don Jackson’s team won the Grizzlys Wolfsburg 3-1 (0-1, 0-0, 3-0) and achieved their second win. Whoever wins four times reaches the playoff finals. “Of course a small load fell down,” admitted Munich striker Justin Schütz at Magentasport. The lead of the efficient Lower Saxony by Darren Archibald (20th minute) fell shortly after the Munich team failed to take advantage of a majority situation and lasted until the beginning of the final section. Striker Benjamin Smith (41st) and defender Konrad Abeltshauser (45th) turned the game for the best offensive of the preliminary round in front of 4503 spectators. International striker Yasin Ehliz scored the empty goal 17 seconds before the end. “We had to be patient. We showed that,” said national goalkeeper Mathias Niederberger.
Munich withstood the pressure again and regained the home advantage with the win in Wolfsburg
The home defeat on Tuesday put the EHC under pressure. In the playoff quarter-finals, the EHC was even 0:2 behind in the series against Bremerhaven and then still confidently secured the entry into the semi-finals with four wins in a row. The semi-final game against the Wolfsburg Grizzlies continues on Saturday (3:15 p.m. / Magentasport) with a home game for Munich. The Adler will be back in Ingolstadt on Saturday (6 p.m./Magentasport).
In the fourth meeting in front of 13,600 spectators in Mannheim, Ingolstadt’s defender Leon Hüttl scored the only goal of the evening. It remained the case that in this semi-final duel all games so far have gone to the away team. “It’s hard to win without a goal. In general, we didn’t create enough offensively,” criticized Mannheim’s assistant coach Marcel Goc: “We know we have to step it up a notch.” The suspended Mannheimer David Wolf watched the game for a while in the midst of the spectators. The DEL had suspended the national striker for three games after a fight in the second duel, and Wolf could only play again in game six on Easter Monday.
