Lesson at the Ice Hockey World Cup
Decimated DEB team goes down badly against USA
May 11, 2024, 10:49 p.m
What a slap for the vice world champion: the German national ice hockey team has absolutely no chance against the USA in the second game of the World Cup.
The German runners-up received a lesson at the Ice Hockey World Championships in the Czech Republic. National coach Harold Kreis’ team suffered a bitter 1:6 (0:2, 1:2, 0:2) against the USA in the second preliminary round game. 28 hours after the opening 6-4 win over Olympic third-placed Slovakia, Germany suffered its first setback.
Only Yasin Ehliz (35th) scored in front of 9,109 spectators in the Ostravar Arena, including a good 3,000 German fans, for the DEB team, which had to do without NHL attacker Nico Sturm and defenders Maksymilian Szuber and Fabio Wagner. Brady Tkachuk (13th), Michael Kesselring (18th), Johnny Gaudreau in the power play (33rd), Luke Hughes (40th), Trevor Zegras (51st) and Michael Eyssimont (53rd) scored the goals for the Americans, who took impressive revenge for the semi-final defeat in Tampere.
Vice world champions are missing
With a 4-3 win after extra time thanks to Frederik Tiffels’ winning goal, the DEB team sensationally reached the final last year. In the preliminary round there was a 2:3. With 22 NHL professionals around Tkachuk, Gaudreau and Zegras, the US team is significantly stronger this year. The next German opponent on Monday (8:20 p.m./Pro7 and MagentaSport) is the eleven-time world champion Sweden, who defeated the Americans 5-2 at the start.
The DEB did not want to reveal why the three vice world champions were missing. The district nominated Maximilian Kastner and Colin Ugbekile. “We have the opportunity to bring in some fresh talent,” said the coach at MagentaSport. NHL striker Lukas Reichel, who arrived in Ostrava on Friday evening and was on the ice for the first time on Saturday morning, was still sitting in the stands. The 21-year-old from the Chicago Blackhawks should play against Sweden. Joshua Samanski from Straubing had to make room for him.
NHL goalie Philipp Grubauer, who stopped 35 shots against Slovakia, was given a break. Mathias Niederberger stood for him between the posts. The Munich player had to defuse the first American goal chance after just a few seconds. On the other side, Wojciech Stachowiak was unlucky when he hit the post (7th). The DEB team then became more courageous and put the NHL team in trouble.
“Now we’re running behind”
However, the USA took the lead: Tkachuk deflected a shot from Kesselring unstoppably. At 0-2, Niederberger let the people in front of them down. “Now we’re running behind,” said Kastner at Pro7, “we have to put a little more pressure on them.” This was initially successful: Alexander Ehl (24th) and Ehliz (25th) missed great opportunities to connect.
The Americans had to replace injured NHL goaltender Alex Lyon with college goalie Trey Augustine in the second period. They remained more effective on offense: Gaudreau used the first power play to make it 3-0. Sturm was missing from the first three goals conceded: his previous attack line conceded two and he was also missing from the outnumbered formation. After the first German goal, the score was 1:4 three seconds before the third siren.
At the beginning of the last 20 minutes, the German team reared up again. But Team USA quickly regained control.