Standing up to the favorite: The German U18 national team put up a great fight against the hosts at the IIHF U18 World Championship in the USA and only narrowly lost. The team of U18 national coach Steffen Ziesche lost 1:3 (3:5, 1:2, 1:1) one day after the 1:2 defeat against the Czech Republic and kept the match open until the final phase. It was the best performance of a German U18 against the United States since 2001. The goals for the selection of the Deutscher Eishockey-Bund were scored by Roman Zap (20th/Jungadler Mannheim), Bennet Roßmy (39th/Lausitzer Füchse) and Sebastian Cimmerman (52./Red Bull Hockey Academy). DEB-Goalie Simon Wolf (Red Bull Hockey Academy) stopped 37 of 42 shots on goal.
In the first period, the USA gained a two-goal lead thanks to goals by Jack Hughes (10th) and Ty Gallagher (17th/power play). But the German U18 team quickly had an answer. Shortly before the end of the first 20 minutes, Zap scored the equalizer on a quick counterattack immediately after a German penalty expired. In the middle period, the DEB-Team noticeably influenced the Americans' attacking momentum - even if Sasha Pastujov (23') scored the score 1-3 after a rebound. A 5:3 majority for the Ziesche team gave them a great chance to catch up again. Roßmy took advantage of it after he received the puck from Julian Lutz (Red Bull Hockey Academy) and shot with his wrist.
After Charlie Stramel (48th) made it 4-2 for the USA in the final third, the DEBselection once again threw all their energy into the mix. A little later, Robin van Calster hit the post, but Cimmerman was luckier and scored with a clean finish to make it 3:4. Kevin Niedenz had a chance to equalize before Ty Gallagher (57th) brought relief to the hosts. On Thursday, the German team has the next chance to cause a surprise when Russia is their opponent (23 p.m. German time/live on thefan.fm).
U18 national coach Steffen Ziesche: “It's difficult to be here again without any points. My boys gave everything they could today. Of course we are disappointed, but we can learn from this. We had good chances throughout the game and came back often. I don't think the Americans had any expectation that we would push back and work as hard against them as we did over these 60 minutes. Simon Wolf played a very good game today. He is a very young goalkeeper and we want to give him a chance to prove himself in this tournament. We give him confidence and that was also the reason why he was selected against the USA today.”
Bennet Rossmy: “Julian Lutz grabbed the puck at the blue line and just put it on my stick. I saw the goalkeeper, he was a little too far to the right. Then I just shot towards the far post and it went in. I really enjoyed that. It was a very good game from us, very close, nobody expected it in this form. The game showed that we are a really good team, but clearly we haven't gotten any points so far. The next game is against Russia and we want to play even better.”
Malte Krenzlin: "We have a good team and the game showed that we can really compete with teams like the USA. It was really good to have such a close game, we will face Russia with the same motivation and want to deliver a similar performance again."