German selection with one point after two games / tomorrow against Slovakia
In the end everyone agreed. “Overall, the win is okay for Finland. “They were the better team and deserved to win,” national coach Marco Sturm summed up the 1:5 in the German national team’s second game at the 2016 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championship against Team Suomi. In fact: the technically adept and strong running Scandinavians proved to be a clever team throughout the entire 60 minutes.
The fact that there was no surprise was primarily due to the unified team performance of the Northern Europeans. It was difficult for the German selection to find gaps against the two-time world champions. Marco Sturm's team was able to create some good opportunities, but these remained unused apart from Brooks Macek's consolation goal. It was the new Munich player's first World Cup goal. Philip Gogulla was also unlucky when he hit the crossbar.
"Our game was sometimes too complicated, we played through the middle instead of shooting the puck deep. If we play more simply, we might get into the game better," said captain Marcel Goc afterwards. The center forward was given two new teammates to play alongside against the Finns, debutants Dominik Kahun and Gerrit Fauser. The trio worked together well. When Macek scored, Kahun was even able to score his first point at a World Cup.
Wipe your mouth, carry on: That's the national team's motto on the day off. Sturm had training in the morning and then gave the team the day off. Given the tight tournament schedule and the high load, this is definitely a sensible measure. “The game against Slovakia is now an important one for us,” said Sturm, looking ahead to the duel with the Slovaks on Tuesday (15.15:1 p.m., live on SPORTXNUMX).
Tactically, not much should change. However, the national coach made it clear to his boys that consistency is an important cornerstone. According to Sturm, we saw against the Finns that “we were missing both our heads and our legs in the first third”. The 37-year-old ex-NHL professional sees the difference here: “If you want to compete with the big boys, then you have to be better in situations like this.”