The German national ice hockey team missed out on a sense of success despite renewed progress in preparation for the 2021 IIHF World Championships in Riga, Latvia. National coach Toni Söderholm's team narrowly lost 4:5 (2:1, 1:1, 1:3) against the team from the Czech Republic in Nuremberg. In the ARENA NÜRNBERGER Versicherung, Munich's John Peterka (16th, 22nd/power) scored his first two international goals. The soon-to-be-Munich player Frederik Tiffels (20th) and Alexander Ehl (49th) scored the other goals for the selection of the Deutscher Eishockey-Bund, while Matej Blümel (20th) and Radim Salda (29th) scored for the fifth in the world rankings. Jakub Galvas (41st/50th) and David Tomasek (54th). As the best player of the DEB-Selection was awarded after the game Peterka.
The German team lined up in an almost identical formation as on Thursday in the 1:4 defeat in the first comparison, with Andreas Jenike from Iserlohn starting in goal instead of Nuremberg's Niklas Treutle, who started in an international match for the first time since 2015 DEB-Housing stood. Düsseldorf's Mirko Pantkowski took a seat on the bench as back-up. Munich's Maximilian Kastner was still slightly injured.
In contrast to the game on Thursday, the DEB-Select two of your options in the first section. Peterka aimed precisely from a half-right position and put the target under the crossbar. Tiffels was then successful in a solo effort when he used his pace and confidently beat the Czech goalie. The guests promptly hit back, but that DEBThe team didn't allow itself to be unsettled by the late goal and went up early in the second third. Peterka was right again and used a backhand pass from Laurin Braun before the six-time world champion came close again.
In the final section, both teams had a thrilling exchange of blows. Immediately after the restart, Galvas equalized for the Czechs, but Ehl was able to give them the lead again by following up in front of the opponent's goal DEB-Achieve selection. Afterwards, the guests turned things up again and scored two power-play goals, which ultimately resulted in their narrow defeat DEB-Selection sealed.
On May 4th, the team will meet again at the same location and set their sights on the next two home international games against Belarus (May 7th/17.00:8 p.m. and May 15.45th/1:11 p.m., both live on MagentaSport and SPORT15). The immediate preparation for the World Cup begins on May XNUMXth, with departure on May XNUMXth DEB-Selection planned for Riga, where the first World Cup game against Italy will follow on May 21st (15.15:1 p.m./SPORTXNUMX).
National coach Toni Söderholm: “Overall, we should have brought the game home after leading several times. The team implemented a lot of what we had set out to do. We acted more calmly on defense, accepted the duels better and were able to improve our build-up game for the offensive zone, which led to more shots on goal. We took a lot more penalties in the offensive zone on the first preparation weekend, which was better in the games against the Czech Republic. However, something like this can always happen, which is why we have to deal with our outnumbered game. In this respect, it is good to now know the construction sites for the next phase of the World Cup preparations. “
Captain Moritz Müller: “Today was certainly the best game of the World Cup preparations so far. Our pace was good and the pressure on the opponent's goal was good. Of course we have to look at the outnumbered situations; we have to work on ourselves here.”
Striker Frederik Tiffels: “It's annoying that we gave up the game after taking the lead. That shouldn't happen to us at the World Cup, we just have to avoid penalty times towards the end. But we also had enough chances to win the game. So we are on the right track, but we have to show our performance over 60 minutes so that we can win the games.”
