The German men's national team achieved its third victory in a row at the 2023 IIHF World Championships. National coach Harold Kreis' team won 7-2 against Hungary. Goal scorers for the DEB-Selections were Wojciech Stachowiak, Moritz Seider, Nico Sturm (2), JJ Peterka, Dominik Kahun and Jonas Müller. 4.821 spectators saw the game in the Nokia Arena in Tampere. Player of the game on the German side was Nico Sturm.
Compared to the game against Austria, there were no changes to the German team's lineup. The coaching staff had only changed two offensive formations: Dominik Kahun played today with JJ Peterka and Freddie Tiffels, while Marcel Noebels formed a line with Maxi Kastner and Manuel Wiederer.
The DEBteam went into the game as favorites, in which the Hungarian national team also desperately wanted to score points to avoid the relegation battle in Group A. But Wojciech Stachowiak scored the first goal of the afternoon after just under twelve minutes when he used the rebound from Justin Schütz's shot to make it 1-0. In the 13th minute, Dominik Kahun had the opportunity to score the second German goal after a one-two with Dominik Tiffels from close range. But Dominik Horvath in the Hungarian goal saved the shot. JJ Peterka had another good move three minutes later when the puck jumped into the free slot and the NHL striker was denied by Horvath.
After the break it was 4-on-4 after Moritz Seider and Vilmos Gallo each received two penalty minutes at the end of the first period. The extra space didn't produce any notable scenes. Shortly before Hungary's captain Gergo Nagy charged at Mathias Niederberger alone and had a dangerous scoring opportunity, Maksymilian Szuber hit a check against the head, which was punished with a game misconduct penalty. A Hungarian goal was disallowed because the referee whistled a penalty against Istvan Bartalis shortly beforehand. In the 36th minute, Dominik Tiffels played a one-two with Moritz Seider, which Seider converted to make it 2-0. Nico Sturm also scored just 18 seconds after the second goal. In the ensuing power play it was the NHL striker again who increased the score to 4-0 (38').
In the final period, JJ Peterka scored a goal worth seeing: he shot from the left side DEB-Striker throws the puck over his shoulder Goalies exactly into the corner of the goal and beat Horvath to make it 5-0 (43'). The Hungarians stuck with it despite being behind. They first used a counterattack to make it 5-1 through Istvan Terbocs (47th) and just two minutes later, after the German defense briefly lacked coordination, they increased the score to 5-2 through Nandor Fejes. In return, that laid DEBteam went one step further: JJ Peterka passed into the path of Dominik Kahun, who shot the puck into the goal to make it 6-2 (51'). Jonas Müller scored the final score in the 59th minute with a final score of 7:2.
With its third World Cup victory, the... DEB-Selection now has nine points in its account and has thus retained the chance of taking part in the quarter-finals. The final game of preliminary group A against France is next Tuesday. The team will face France at 11:20 a.m. German time. The game will be shown live on MagentaSport and Sport1.