The German women's national team continued its winning streak at the 2024 IIHF Women's World Championship with a lot of commitment and a unified team performance. Third game – third win! Women's national coach Jeff MacLeod's team won against Sweden 1-0 (0-0, 0-0, 1-0). The goal for them DEB-Selection Franziska Feldmeier scored, Sandra Abstreiter fended off 32 shots and celebrated a shutout - the first by a German team against Sweden in the history of the Women's World Cup.
The DEB-Selection went on the ice for the third time in a row at the World Championships with the same line-up. The starting six also remained unchanged - Sandra Abstreiter started again in goal - Daria Gleißner, Ronja Hark, Nicola Eisenschmid, Emily Nix and Laura Kluge completed the starting six.
The Swedes put pressure on the team in the opening third and became dangerous in their early majority situation in the first minute. A physical game developed where the German goalkeeper Sandra Abstreiter came into focus with some strong saves. In the middle section, Lina Ljungblom and Mira Hallin, among others, failed because of the German number 35. The DEB-Selection held strong against it - threw themselves into the Swedes' shots and defended self-sacrificingly.
The German team was able to improve offensively in the final period and generated more shots on goal. Nicola Eisenschmid deflected a shot from Emily Nix with her racket, but was unable to give Germany the lead. Resi Wagner had further good opportunities with a shot from the blue line and Nina Christof from the slot. A short time later, Luisa Welcke didn't fully hit the puck from short distance, otherwise she would have had a good chance of taking the lead. In the 49th minute, Franziska Feldmeier broke the deadlock by deflecting a shot from Tabea Botthof for a 1-0 lead. Another good German opportunity followed from Svenja Voigt, who hit the shoulder of the Swedish goalkeeper Emma Söderberg. In the last two minutes of the game, the German team received a penalty and Sweden took their goalkeeper off the ice, making it 6 against 4. Sandra Abstreiter and her defense braced themselves against the Swedish offensive, stopped and blocked the shots and did not allow a goal to be conceded.
The DEBThe selection therefore remains undefeated in the current tournament and is therefore the group winner. Tomorrow, Tuesday, April 9, 2024, the DEB-Selection in their last preliminary round game at the Ice Hockey World Championships in Utica (USA) at 11 a.m. local time (17 p.m. German time) against China. All German World Cup games will be broadcast live and free of charge on MagentaSport.
Women's national coach Jeff MacLeod: “Today’s game was another chance for us to show what we can do over 60 minutes. We had a bit of a hard time getting into the game, but then we got better and better. The character and good team spirit were shown again today. Now we look to the next game against China and then we will prepare for the upcoming quarter-finals.”
Goalkeeper Sandra Abstreiter: “The team spirit was really good today, especially in the last minutes of the game. Almost no shots got through because the girls blocked everything. That was really another very good team success. Of course we now want to go out of the preliminary round undefeated and win against the Chinese tomorrow.”
World Cup schedule for the German women’s national team:
04.04.2024/15/00 | 21:00 p.m. (German time XNUMX:XNUMX p.m.) | Denmark - Germany 1:5 (0:1, 0:1, 1:3)
06.04.2024/15/00 | 21:00 p.m. (German time XNUMX:XNUMX p.m.) | Japan – Germany 1:4 (0:0, 0:2, 1:2)
April 08.04.2024, 11 | 00:17 (German time 00:XNUMX p.m.) | Germany – Sweden 1:0 (0:0, 0:0, 1:0)
April 09.04.2024, 11 | 00:17 (German time 00:XNUMX p.m.) | Germany - China