First World Cup victory, no Draisaitl
DEB team “dirty” keeps the chance of the quarterfinals
05/18/2023 9:53 p.m
Germany’s ice hockey team keeps their quarter-final chance with their first win at the World Championships in Finland and Latvia. The selection of national coach Harold Kreis beats Denmark with a tour de force. Now the DEB team has to play against Austria on Friday.
Even without Leon Draisaitl, the German national ice hockey players won their first “final” at the World Cup and kept the chance of the quarter-finals and the Olympic ticket. One day after the cancellation of the NHL superstar, the team of national coach Harold Kreis defeated Denmark 6: 4 (0: 1, 3: 1, 3: 2) after an early deficit and ended their series of defeats in Tampere.
With three points, the selection of the German Ice Hockey Federation (DEB) improved to sixth place in the preliminary round group A. However, in all probability there are also victories in the remaining games on Friday (7:20 p.m. CEST) against Austria, on Sunday (3:20 p.m.). ) against Hungary and on Tuesday (11.20 a.m./alle Sport1 and MagentaSport) against France to move into the knockout stages. On the fringes of the game, the DEB announced that NHL goalkeeper Philipp Grubauer would not be traveling after his play-off.
NHL rookie John-Jason Peterka (30th), Alexander Ehl (32nd), Captain Moritz Müller (38th), Jonas Müller (56th), Marcel Noebels (59th) and Nico Sturm (60th) scored ahead of 3954 spectators in Tampere watched the goals of the German team, which had started the tournament with narrow defeats against medal candidates Sweden (0:1), Finland (3:4) and USA (2:3). Matias Lassen (6th), Mathias Bau (40th) and Christian Wejse (56th/60th) scored for the Danes with NHL star Nikolaj Ehlers, who had won their first three games.
Germany starts nervously
On Wednesday morning, the DEB team had reached Draisaitls no. The world-class forward of the Edmonton Oilers had primarily given up his participation in the World Cup after the NHL knockout because he would only have arrived in Finland after the landmark game against Denmark. The Munich debutant Filip Varejcka took the space reserved on Thursday. Grubauer also failed in the quarterfinals with Seattle Kraken. According to DEB, the “time factor” was also decisive for the cancellation.
The German team started visibly nervous, but also had bad luck when NHL defender Moritz Seider hit the post (3rd). On the other side, Captain Müller unluckily deflected a shot from Lassen into his own goal. The early goal increased the nervousness, in the first power play nothing came together at all. “We have problems getting into the zone and getting stuck,” admitted Peterka at MagentaSport.
In the second round, Seider and Co. went to work with much more pressure and got the deserved equalizer: Peterka completed an energetic solo with his second tournament goal. Just two minutes later, Ehl scored the lead, which Captain Müller extended after a clever pass from Marcel Noebels. “We also scored the dirty goals,” Ehl stated during the second break.