The German U20 national team won its first preparation game at the Federal Training Center in Füssen on Monday evening. U20 national coach Christian Künast's team defeated the Norwegian U20 team 5:3 (3:1, 1:2, 1:0).
Without the recently arrived Dominik Bokk, Justin Schütz and Leon Gawanke as well as goalie Hendrik Hane, the U20 national team played in the Allgäu against their eventual World Cup group opponents. Tim Brunnhuber took over the captaincy role. His assistants were Colin Ugbekile and Mike Fischer.
The DEBThe German team got off to a successful start: after Thomas Berg-Paulsen had to sit in the penalty box, Tim Stützle took advantage of the power play to score the opening goal for the hosts. The German team then continued to apply pressure and had good scoring opportunities thanks to the interplay between Sebastian Streu and Tim Wohlgemuth, as well as Dennis Lobach. As the Norwegians slowly got into the game, Nicolas Appendino sent the puck into the net from the blue line for the second German goal (10th minute). Tim Wohlgemuth and Moritz Wirth then had two more good scoring opportunities, but they shot over the goal or were stopped by the Norwegian goalie. Filip Lalande then brought the Norwegians within one goal one and a half minutes before the end of the first period. Alexander Ehl, however, had the right answer, hitting back 45 seconds later to make it 3-1.
The middle period opened with another power play goal - once again it was the German team that took advantage of their power play. Captain Tim Brunnhuber increased the score to 25:4 in the 1th minute. But the Norwegians created more opportunities than in the first period and scored the second goal through Robin Haglund after assists from Samuel Solem (27th minute). Two minutes before the end of the period, Haglund put the puck into the right corner and scored the third Norwegian goal, which also meant 4:3 from the German perspective.
Even after the second period break, the German team stayed true to their line and scored the opening goal. Tim Wohlgemuth scored Germany's fifth goal of the day after preparatory work from Alexander Ehl and Tobias Möller. Opportunities followed on both sides, but the Norwegians got the best of all six minutes before the end: Samuel Solem pushed the puck over Fanghanded by goalie Florian Mnich, but only hit the inside post, from where the disc bounced back into the field. The German U20 team subsequently had a few more opportunities, but in the end it was a 5-3 win and a successful start to their World Cup preparations.
Germany: Mnich (mason) – Ugbekile, innkeeper; appendino, litter; Möller, Hüttl; Wirth, Heinzinger; Dersch – Stützle, Brunnhuber, Fischer; Preto, Jentzsch, Valenti; Baßler, Knobloch, Ehl; Peterka, Wohlgemuth, Lobach
Penalty minutes: Germany 6 – Norway 6
You can find all the statistics for the game HERE.