The way Patrick Hager crept across the ice revealed a lot about the EHC Red Bull Munich captain’s state of mind. Hager’s head was slightly lowered, the speed was very slow, and since it couldn’t be tiredness – at that point only five and a half minutes had been played in this playoff semi-final game of the German Ice Hockey League (DEL) – it was the displeasure about a start could safely be put in the “extremely botched” category. On Sunday, the EHC was 0:3 behind in game four of the best-of-seven series against the Fischtown Pinguins after just five and a half minutes. Hager was number one (Ross Mauermann, 2nd) and third (Jan Urbas, 6th) in goals conceded .) on the ice and had followed the second (Christian Wejse, 5th) from the penalty box.
The Munich team was able to correct the “extremely bad” start, as Konrad Abeltshauser described it after the game in the catacombs of the Munich Olympic ice rink, but they were no longer able to turn the game around. They lost 2:3 on Sunday, are now 1:3 behind in the series and need to win in Bremerhaven on Tuesday to avert the end of the season. If they lose there, Sunday’s game would also have been the last in the Olympic ice rink.
On Friday, the EHC shone in Bremerhaven with a “stable” performance, according to Söderholm – and won 4-0
The weak start on Sunday was diametrically opposed to what the Munich team had shown on Friday in game three in Bremerhaven. In the strong 4-0 win – Fischtown’s first defeat in the current playoffs – the EHC celebrated some pleasing premieres. Since Fischtown goalkeeper Kristers Gudlevskis played the disc into Abeltshauser’s stick early in an attempt to speed up the game, the EHC defender had little trouble getting it into the Bremerhaven box to make it 1-0 (7th). It was Munich’s first lead in the semi-final series, and it was also followed by the first powerplay goal of the series (Maximilian Kastner, 53′) and goalkeeper Mathias Niederberger’s first clean sheet. “We read and recognized the situations better than in the first two games,” said EHC coach Söderholm, who described his team’s performance as “stable”.
This stability was missing in the first few minutes on Sunday. The attitude was right for fighting your way back into the game. “The only positive thing is that there are still 51 minutes of ice hockey to play,” said Konrad Abeltshauser after the shock start in the middle of the first third. Now it’s a matter of flipping the switch immediately and starting to catch up straight away. The EHC defender also followed his words with actions by serving the target to Jonathon Blum in such a way that his placed shot from the blue line found its way into the Bremerhaven box in the tenth minute. And when Hager placed the disc in front of the visitors’ goal with such precision in the 28th minute that all Chris DeSousa had to do was hold the stick in, the captain’s look as he celebrated with DeSousa expressed something completely different: pure determination. The shock start was over and the EHC was back in the game. But still behind.
Hager could have equalized that in the 53rd minute. Directly in front of Gudlevskis he had an undisturbed follow-up shot, but the Fischtown goalkeeper got his pad on the screen when the Munich striker tried. Hager’s gaze went up immediately afterwards, he knew how great this opportunity was. In the final minute, Gudlevskis could not be overcome even at six against four.
“Good teams don’t lose twice in a row,” Fischtown defender Gregory Kreutzer explained before Sunday’s game. The Munich team now has to win three games in a row to get back to the final like last year. Abeltshauser believes in it. “I look into the dressing room and see great ice hockey players,” he emphasized. “I see guys who know how to win and who don’t accept that the season is over yet.”