The German national ice hockey team suffered its first defeat in the fourth game of the tournament at the 2021 IIHF World Championship. National coach Toni Söderholm's team narrowly lost to Kazakhstan 2:3 (0:0, 2:1, 0:2). In the Riga Arena, Markus Eisenschmid and Tom Kühnhackl scored the goals for the German team.
DEBCoach Söderholm used the same formation for the third time in a row. As in the 5-1 win against Norway and the 3-1 win against Canada, Mathias Niederberger was again in goal. Kazakhstan had surprised everyone at the start of the World Cup with wins after penalty shootouts against hosts Latvia and Finland, but then suffered their first defeat against the USA (0-3).
The Kazakhs put the first exclamation mark when the puck landed on the crossbar of Mathias Niederberger's goal shortly after the start of the game. Also the DEB-Selection almost scored a little later: A shot from Jonas Müller (6th) also scratched the goal post, then Tobi Rieder had the lead on the stick, but this time the outside post was in the way. The overall balanced first third ended goalless.
The Kazakhs also presented themselves as unpleasant opponents in the second period, Alexander Shin (27th) scored from the slot to take the lead. The DEBThe team immediately increased the tempo and it didn't take long before Tom Kühnhackl (30th) equalized with a slap shot into the corner. Even after that, the team of national coach Toni Söderholm kept the pressure on. With a numerical advantage, Markus Eisenschmid (35th) capitalized on Stefan Loibl's great work to take the lead for the first time.
Shortly after the restart, the Kazakhs were awarded a penalty, which Roman Starchenko (41st) converted to equalize. The game remained balanced and exciting. Around five minutes before the end, Pavel Akolzin (56th) was cleared and the Kazakh striker gave Niederberger no chance with a well-placed shot. The DEB-Selection, which brought in a sixth field player in the final two minutes, could no longer avert the narrow defeat in the little playing time remaining. Moritz Seider was named the best player.
After this once again exhausting duel, the... DEB-Selection now has two game-free days in the tournament for the first time. Captain Moritz Müller's team will then face defending champions Finland in the fifth game in Group B on Saturday (live on SPORT19.00 from 1 p.m.).
Voices about the game:
Defender Marco Nowak: “We knew it wouldn't be an easy game against the Kazakhs, who really didn't give us much space and did very well. Nevertheless, we had enough chances to win the game. Today luck wasn’t on our side.”
Striker Markus Eisenschmid: “The Kazakhs often pushed us outwards and gave us few high-quality chances from the slot. We will of course discuss the things that didn't work out so well today and then we'll deal with them. We got three wins from the first four games, we can build on that.”
National coach Toni Söderholm: “We expected a game with a lot of duels based on the Kazakhs' previous World Cup games. Today we didn't show our best performance, we were a bit slow, also mentally. We had a few chances to score, but overall we didn't do enough on the ice to earn the win. That's why the decision in the last few centimeters today was against us. We are now gathering our strength on the two days without games and focusing on our strengths.”