The German national team saved the chance to reach the quarter finals at the ice hockey world championships in Finland and Latvia. After three initial defeats against Sweden, Finland and the USA, the team of national coach Harold Kreis won against Denmark on Thursday evening in Tampere after a strong second third 6: 4 (0: 1, 3: 1, 3: 2). A maximum of nine points are still possible from the remaining three group games against Austria (Friday, 7.20 p.m./Sport1 and Magentasport), Hungary (Sunday) and France (Tuesday); Denmark, who started the tournament with three wins, have eight points and hosts Finland seven.
After the cancellation of the World Cup by NHL star Leon Draisaitl on Wednesday, Kreis had the Munich striker Filip Varejcka licensed as the last field player. Goalkeeper Philipp Grubauer (Seattle) will not travel to Tampere either, as the German Ice Hockey Federation (DEB) announced in the evening. But what was more important at first: A win had to come, absolutely, somehow.
The third minute was running, for the first time the German spectators drew breath for a goal scream. But Moritz Seider’s wrist shot bounced off the crossbar in front of the line and onto the ice. And if you’re not lucky: After 5:39 minutes, the DEB team was behind.
As against the USA, a German defender deflected a puck into his own net, this time it was Moritz Müller. It was clear, attacker Nico Sturm thought to himself at that moment: “They’ll throw a couple of sausage rolls at goal and, with our luck, they’ll take the lead, of course.” The official scorer was Matias Lassen, because there are no own goals in ice hockey, but the stadium management faded in the unfortunate Müller. The captain had warned before this key game that it could be that you will be behind, “you have to be able to cope mentally”. Now they had to show how strong they really are.
Kreis had called for “our best performance” against the Danes, and his team had to work in a disciplined manner, especially defensively. “The Danes are technically and running very good. They are a team that can also play hard physically and is very good on the power play,” said Kreis. Logical conclusion: “We don’t want to allow the Danes to get on the power play.” With a success rate of more than 46 percent, the Danes have had an outstanding majority game in this tournament so far, especially Nikolaj Ehlers, the son of national coach Heinz Ehlers, trumped: He scored three of his four tournament goals in the first three games on the power play.
The day before this extremely important game, the Germans had worked on their superiority game themselves, but the first power play blew away like a lukewarm summer wind. Daniel Fischbuch from Düsseldorf, who was not included this time, had the most fun, sitting in the stands with his wife and children on Father’s Day. The players down on the ice took a depressing 0-1 lead into the dressing room.
Suddenly the German team plays with more courage, more effort towards goal and more physical presence
The duel against Denmark has always been close in recent years. The DEB team won 1-0 in Helsinki in 2022 and 2-1 in Košice in 2019. In 2018 in Herning, the Germans lost to the hosts after a penalty shootout. On Thursday, the Scandinavians were by no means scary, much more a bit conservative and comfortable after their three victories against Hungary, France and Austria, the three supposedly weakest teams in Group A.
Kreis made a change in personnel for the second third, and what a change: it seemed as if he had sent a completely new team back onto the ice, with more courage, more effort towards the goal, more physical presence. “We weren’t good in the first third. We came out much better in the second,” said Berlin’s Marcel Noebels. The Germans squeezed the Danes tighter and tighter in their thirds and finally they had a little bit of luck. The shot by NHL professional John-Jason Peterka slipped keeper Frederik Dichow under the schooners to make it 1-1 (30′), the shot ratio in the second period was 8-0 for Germany. And they followed up immediately: When Dichow let a puck bounce forward, Alexander Ehl resolutely followed to make it 2-1 (32nd). Within 116 seconds, the DEB team had turned the game.
Captain Müller should also find his personal relief: After a precise pass from Marcel Noebels through the Danish defense zone, the defender confidently increased the lead to 3:1 (38th). Of course, it was too early for deep relaxation: Mathias Bau reduced the deficit to 3:2 in the last minute of the second period, goalkeeper Mathias Niederberger was blocked from view. So it was the expected tight game again.
Which German team would come out of the dressing room for the last 20 minutes: the one from the first or the second period? In any case, the ones that didn’t allow the Danes even the slightest majority game. The Danes showed five minutes before the end that they can score five against five: Christian Wejse, who plays for Bremerhaven in the DEL, equalized to make it 3:3. But Jonas Müller answered only 20 seconds later with the 4:3 (56th), again Dichow did not look good. But even Noebels’ 5:3 into the empty Danish goal (59th) was not enough, because Wejse again provided an exciting seven seconds. Denmark took the goalkeeper off the ice again, then Nico Sturm scored to make it 6-4 (60′).
Things are looking a lot better for the German team now. On Friday against Austria, who had a day’s rest, Harold Kreis’ team must now show that they can keep up the physical and mental tension better than the Danes. Before the game, striker Samuel Soramies said knowing they had zero points was exciting enough. This dubious encourager has at least been eliminated.