The German U20 national team lost 2:11 to host and defending champion Canada at the World Championship in Halifax on Thursday night. Goal scorers for the DEBThe team was Roman Kechter and Philipp Sinn. After Nikita Quapp was between the posts on Tuesday, Simon Wolf was guarding the German goal today.
The Canadians started the game furiously. After the surprising opening defeat against the Czech Republic, the hosts tried to dictate the game right from the start. The team of U20 national coach Tobias Abstreiter was able to survive the first attacks, including a shorthanded situation, without conceding a goal. In the seventh minute, Team Canada used Dylan Guenther's second power play of the evening to make it 1-0. Germany then created their first chances, one of which Roman Kechter used to equalize in the twelfth minute. However, Shane Wright (on the power play) and Connor Bedarf (solo) scored in the 14th and 18th minutes to make it 3-1 at halftime.
64 seconds after the break, Connor Bedard scored for the second time of the evening, completing his hat trick in the 34th minute to make it 5-1. Previously it could DEBteam relieved the pressure on the German defense with a power play after a good eight minutes. Ryan Del Monte was injured in action and had to sit out the rest of the game. Towards the end of the period, Ryan Bettahar received a major penalty and a match penalty for checking to the head. The hosts took advantage of the following five-minute advantage and increased the lead to 37:40 with three goals from Guenther (39th and 40th), Brandt Clarke (9th) and Logan Stankoven (1th).
At the beginning of the third period, the U20 national coach changed the goalkeeper: Rihards Babulis came into goal for Simon Wolf, who had to reach behind him for the first time after just under a minute and a half. Zack Ostapchuk made it 10:1. After a remarkable coast-to-coast solo by Connor Bedard, Joshua Roy made it 11:1 (51st). Shortly before the end, Philipp Sinn (55th) scored the second German goal to make the final score 11:2.
The best German player was Nikolaus Heigl.
The German team continues against Austria on Friday at 22:30 p.m. (German time). The game will be a crucial factor in the fight for the quarter-finals. It will be shown live and free on Magenta Sport.
U20 national coach Tobias Abstreiter: "I think the penalties were decisive today. We took too many unnecessary penalties and from the start we were not as strong as the Canadians in the tackles and in the pressure on the stick. We simply couldn't hold our own here, which is why the opponent won a lot of tackles. In the end, after the five-minute penalty, it was clear that it would end like this. It is of course a shame for Simon Wolf, who was in goal, that he had to survive so many shorthanded situations. At the end of the day, we have to learn from this game and simply cannot play shorthanded. We have to make sure that we move our legs and behave in the tackles in such a way that we don't end up in the penalty box and thus harm the team."
Striker Roman Kechter: “The 5-on-5 game wasn’t bad today. It is important that the willingness to run is there in the next game. We need to improve our outnumbered game and be more structured in all three thirds. We overslept the first 10 minutes today, that can't happen to us. We also sat in the penalty box too often. In the game against Austria we have to make sure we attack every target hard. What we can take from this defeat is that we tried to give everything until the end. We kept playing without letting the scoreboard influence us too much. We just have to play with heart and passion.”