The German national ice hockey team ended the test match weekend in Slovakia with another impressive performance. After the 3:4 defeat after a penalty shootout on Saturday, national coach Toni Söderholm's team had to admit defeat again about 20 hours later, but showed despite the 1:2 (0:0, 1:1, 0:1) in the second The duel in Piestany was another committed game. Daniel Schmölz (39th), who had already been one of the three goal scorers the day before, scored the goal for the Deutscher Eishockey-Bund. After the journey home in two buses there is a day off from training before that DEBteam meets again in Nuremberg on Tuesday with a newly assembled squad.
After Nuremberg's Niklas Treutle on Saturday DEB-Goal was convincing, Düsseldorf's Mirko Pantkowski was given a chance. Club colleague Hendrik Hane sat on the bench as a backup. Like in game one DEBCoach Söderholm fielded eight defenders and 13 strikers, Düsseldorf's Marco Nowak led the team onto the ice again as captain and was later voted the best German player. Pantkowski already impressed in the first third, when the DEB-Selection also successfully survived some outnumbered situations. As agreed, the goalkeeper made way for Hane halfway through the game, who also played well.
The young team showed morale when they fought back determinedly after falling behind thanks to Andrej Kollar's goal (29th). Schmölz from Nuremberg scored because he pursued energetically together with Daniel Fischbuch. In general, there was an increase in the middle third. In the final period, after Daniil Fominykh's goal (48th), the equalizer was possible until the end; he remained the strong fighter DEB-Selection denied.
The coming week will be crowned by the first two home international games of the World Cup preparations. On Thursday (April 29th/live on SPORT1 and MagentaSport) and Saturday (May 1st/live and free on MagentaSport) the DEB-Selection in Nuremberg against the Czech Republic, in the third phase of the World Cup preparation there will be two duels against Belarus (May 7th and 8th).
National coach Toni Söderholm: “In terms of the result, it is of course somewhat disappointing when the boys bring so much passion and energy. Then you want to be able to reward yourself with victories. Overall we improved from game one to game two. We were much clearer in our decisions today and ended game two the way we actually have to start every game. It was a cool week, we saw a lot of new faces and it hurts that we have to send some of them home now, especially when the boys leave such positive impressions. We've seen players who have a future in the national team, it's a lot of work for everyone, but it's progressing step by step. Now we’ll analyze game two and then we’ll take the steps for the second week.”
Sports director Christian Künast: “Our young team fought very well and gave everything. You can still tell that some of them are inexperienced at the international level, but they have sold very well. This is also a step in the right direction for German ice hockey with such a young team. We don’t have to be afraid of the future.”
Captain Marco Nowak: “We had a good week, it's a shame we didn't win. We developed step by step and you could see that we had become a unit in such a short time, that everyone fought for every inch for the other. This is a good approach and a good start for the next few weeks. The boys performed outstandingly and did a great job. All the goalkeepers made great saves. We now have to continue working on our system, take another step forward and implement this in the games against the Czech Republic.”
Daniel Fischbuch: “It was a good game for us, we did a lot of things right and we now have to work on the mistakes. It was fun and an honor to wear the eagle on your chest. The small mistakes were immediately punished, but we worked well together as a team and are now making sure we continue to learn.”
Daniel Schmölz: “We took a step forward today, even if it was bitter to lose. We had a lot of good approaches, a lot of good scenes, you can definitely build on that. Our line worked well, we could have scored more goals, but it was the first two games that we played together like that.”
Photos: Andrej Galica / Daniel Stehlik