Victory for World Cup knockout round
DEB team conjures up a duel with their archrival
May 23, 2023, 1:38 p.m
The World Cup begins extremely bitterly for the German national ice hockey team: the battered DEB team plays well, but narrowly loses three times. Then the race to catch up towards the quarter-finals begins – and it’s impressive. Now a special opponent awaits.
Germany’s ice hockey team got in the mood for the explosive quarter-finals of the World Cup against arch-rivals Switzerland with a commanding final victory in the group. The selection of national coach Harold Kreis with a 5: 0 (2: 0, 1: 0, 2: 0) against France removed the last doubts about a renewed entry into the knockout round. Alexander Ehl from Düsseldorfer EG (4th minute), Frederik Tiffels from German champion EHC Red Bull Munich (16th), top scorer John-Jason Peterka from the Buffalo Sabers (23rd), Daniel Fischbuch (44th) also from DEG and Maximilian Kastner as another Munich player (54th) scored the goals for the fourth win in a row at the World Cup in Finland and Latvia. In Tampere, the German team was loudly celebrated by around 6,000 Finnish schoolchildren for their performance.
According to the regulations of the World Federation IIHF, the selection of the German Ice Hockey Federation must now travel to Riga, Latvia. According to the DEB, however, a different appointment is being considered. It is also possible that the Germans will be spared the trip on Wednesday. An official confirmation of the exact quarter-final fixtures for Thursday should not come until late in the evening.
Again against the archrival
Germany had recently won three important knockout games in a row against the Swiss, who were top of Group B this year with eight NHL players: in the quarter-finals of the 2010 home World Cup and in the 2018 Olympic decider the way to the silver medal in Pyeongchang and most recently in the 2021 World Cup quarter-finals, also in Riga.
The new national coach Kreis, succeeding Toni Söderholm on his World Cup debut as head coach, has at least achieved one of the DEB’s targets. Despite the unfortunate start with three narrow defeats against the top teams Sweden, Finland and USA, they made it through to the quarter-finals with the following four victories against Denmark, Austria, Hungary and now France. It is still unclear whether this also means direct Olympic qualification. Until Tuesday, the DEB had no information on which world rankings it used as a basis. There will probably only be clarity about this at the end of the World Cup on the Pentecost weekend.
At the unusual time on Tuesday afternoon, the German team was wide awake in front of 8,598 spectators. “One or the other is happy that it starts so early. Then you don’t have to think about the game so long,” Kreis said before the game at Magenta Sport and called for a confident appearance and a fast, offensive game. “We have it in our own hands and we want to leave it that way,” said Kreis about the starting position.
Outnumbered to victory
In fact, against the French, for whom nothing was at stake in their last World Cup game, they got off to a convincing start and were completely safe. DEG striker Ehl put Germany ahead early on after a strong move by World Cup discoverer Wojciech Stachowiak from ERC Ingolstadt. After Tiffels deflected a shot from NHL attacker Peterka into the net a good ten minutes later to score his first World Cup goal of the year, the game was decided early on. For two thirds, the DEB selection was able to warm up against harmless French for the prestige quarter-finals on Thursday.
Germany’s most successful World Cup points collector to date, Peterka, gained further self-confidence with a successful, fine solo effort in the second period. In the final section it also worked with overnumbered goals: Fischbuch, who had previously missed four games, and Kastner made the success even clearer. In view of the clear lead, the Germans took it easy in the final section, but goalkeeper Mathias Niederberger from EHC Munich still secured the first round match without conceding a goal.