The German national ice hockey team has made a big statement: National coach Toni Söderholm's team sat down in the opening game of the Deutschland Cups won 4:3 against Olympic champions Russia. In front of 3.625 spectators in Krefeld, Daniel Pietta, Simon Sezemsky, Maximilian Kammerer and Felix Schütz were able to get on the German top scorers list. In the previous game, Switzerland defeated Slovakia 5-2. The duel with the Swiss follows on Saturday (13.00 p.m. | Yayla Arena). Tickets are available at deb-online.de.
Personnel: Mirko Sacher, Daniel Fischbuch and Maximilian Daubner were three players making their debut. Marco Nowak led the team as captain on the ice. Mathias Niederberger started in goal.
The Russian selection put the German national team under pressure at the beginning with high tempo and quick combination play. This resulted in the 0:1 by Pavel Poryadin in the fifth minute of the game. Then came that DEB-Selection got better and better into the game and consequently scored the equalizer with a well-placed shot from Daniel Pietta (13th). Around four minutes before the break, Russia took the lead again through Andrei Yermakov (17th).
The German team in particular increased the number of hits in the second section. This led to an action-packed, exciting game that went back and forth. They took advantage of a situation of superiority DEB-Selection for the equalizer by Simon Sezemsky (23.), who scored from the blue line. In the 35th minute, Maximilian Kammerer managed to score the deserved and celebrated lead. But Russia found a quick answer and equalized through Artyom Volkov (38.) before the second break.
Even in the final section, both teams gave each other nothing and continued to offer the spectators an entertaining exchange of blows. Felix Schütz (54th) scored the decisive goal after a pass from Dominik Bittner. In the final minutes, head coach Toni Söderholm's team defended their lead and secured a hard-fought opening victory Deutschland Cup 2019.
On Saturday the German selection continues with the game against Switzerland. The game in the Yayla Arena starts at 13.00 p.m.
“We showed a committed and united team performance. We defended our own zone very well. Overall we can be satisfied, we particularly implemented the tactical guidelines very well,” said national coach Toni Söderholm after the game.