After two days without games, the German national ice hockey team has two games scheduled within 24 hours this Thursday and tomorrow Friday. The opponent on Thursday afternoon (15:40 p.m. CEST, LIVE on SPORT1 & MagentaSport) is the Danish team, on Friday afternoon (15:40 p.m. CEST, LIVE on SPORT1 & MagentaSport) it will be against the Italian selection.
"We have to play straight forward and not allow any counterattacks," said striker Alexander Ehl, looking ahead to the match against Denmark. "Otherwise, we just have to carry on as before, give it our all and then, I think, we can achieve good results."
The Danish team of head coach Heinz Ehlers (formerly Berlin Capitals, Augsburger Panther) is currently in third place in the Group A table with six points but three more goals scored, directly ahead of the German team. A 9-1 opening win against Kazakhstan was followed by a 0-6 win against Switzerland and a 2-1 win against Italy. The last time the two teams met was at the 2019 World Cup in Slovakia. Back then, the Germans won 2-1 with goals from Matthias Plachta and Frederik Tiffels.
At Team Denmark, the German ice hockey fan will find some well-known names in the squad. In addition to the two champion polar bears from Berlin, Nicholas Jensen and Frans Nielsen, are with Frederik Storm (ERC Ingolstadt) and Jesper Jensen (Krefeld Pinguine) two more PENNY DEL cracks arrived in Helsinki. In addition, keeper Sebastian Dahm, now in the service of Klagenfurt, has a DEL past in Iserlohn and Berlin, Markus Lauridsen played in Munich and Julian Jakobsen in Hamburg. The Danes' top scorer after three games is striker Mathias Bau from Herning with one goal and four assists. The only NHL player in the line-up, coach's son Nikolaj Ehlers (Winnipeg Jets), has already recorded one goal and three assists.
As expected, the Italian team has it a bit harder in the tournament. The Azzuri have only one point from four games on the table, although the games were quite close. They lost 1:5 and 2:5 against Canada and Switzerland respectively, followed by a really close 1:2 against Denmark and a 1:2 after extra time against France. An improvement can be seen in the current seventh-placed team, which only did not have to go into Division I in 2021 due to the suspension of promotion and relegation.
While we're talking about it. At the World Cup in Riga a year ago there was a wild 9:4 DEBteams against Italy. Noebels, Pföderl, Reichel, Mo Müller, Plachta, Tiffels, Kühnhackl and Rieder scored the German goals twice.
The Italian team is looked after by ex-Mannheim coach Greg Ireland and former Ingolstadt player Larry Huras. The team includes Peter Spornberger, who is in the Young Talent of the EV Landshut played together with Alex Ehl, a PENNY DEL actor (Schwenninger Wild Wings). Alex Trivellato also, in Young Talent in Berlin trained, returns to the DEL after a year in his native South Tyrol. He will play in Schwenningen next year.
There are two games coming up for the German team that look easier than they will be. Keep your fingers crossed!