Eisbären Berlin - Die Welt ist eine Scheibe

18.02.2012 Practicing for the playoffs

“It was an important learning game for the playoffs” Berlin´s coach Don Jackson commented about the Friday night with a relief. “Of course I am mad. The way we always gave ourselves up is unacceptable. But we stood back up. We have to learn that hockey is a game in which you need to be fully concentrated for 60 minutes – up to the last buzzer”. The Eisbären Berlin won the Friday night game by 7 goals to 4. But the game wasn´t as clear as the scoring suggests.

Barry Tallackson opened the scoring for Berlin at 08:29 of the first period. Frank Hördler put him in action with a cross pass through the neutral zone. Carrying the puck over the blue line he hammered it into the far angle from the right crease. Although Krefeld´s goalie Scott Langkow saw the puck he couldn´t interfere with the 50th goal of the American. Later in the period referee Steffen Klau decided to count Darin Olver´s goal after he had seen the review. Olver received Richie Regehr´s pass in the neutral zone and accepted the challenge to face two defensemen. But instead of trying to fool them he smashed the puck through them. The shot had so much power that the puck bounced right back after impacting under the crossbar (18:05).

During the second period the Eisbären Berlin didn´t reduce their pace. Jon Sim augmented the lead with his first goal in the o2 World – it was a very beautiful goal. After Sven Felski skated over the blue line he spun around and put Sim in action with his backhand drop pass. Finishing off a beautiful stick handling move he found the far corner (12:12). 129 seconds later the sold out arena celebrated again. Darin Olver´s stick pad deflected Richie Regehr´s pass in the goal crease (14:21). After the second intermission the two teams stepped back onto the ice with Berlin leading by 4 goals.

They continued scoring. Laurin Braun somehow pushed the puck through the traffic in front of Scott Langkow and over the goal line at 07:06 of the third period. “I didn´t play well tonight” Krefeld´s goalie said very frustrated. “We didn´t battle enough. When you play against Berlin it is better to be ready to play from the beginning or it is over after the first period already. It is pretty hard to come back after having a 5 goal deficit”.

The Krefeld Pinguine tried their best at the end of the third period. 13:15: Daniel Pietta saw Boris Blank – goal. The spectators felt sorry for Berlin´s goalie Kevin Nastiuk not to get a shootout. 14:56: Duncan Milroy stole the puck off goalie Nastiuk – wrap around – goal. The spectators in the o2 World were a little bit quieter. 15:38: Counter attack – Blank got the puck in front of Nastiuk and shot through the legs – goal. The o2 World was shocked. 16:13: Roland Vewrey´s wrap around resulted in a pass through the coal crease for Andreas Driendl – goal. The spectators in the o2 World were more than quiet. Everybody was paralyzed. The comfortable lead had been given away. 17:02: Francois Méthot stick swung over Milroy´s cross pass – Berlin´s goal was almost empty. 18:28: Then relief for the fans – on a counter attack Sven Felski saw Nick Angell, who one timed the puck from the right dropping point. The puck hit the net. With 10 seconds left in the game Julian Talbot finalized the scoring with an empty netter. “Such things can happen – you can never predict” Nick Angell commented on Krefeld´s battle to catch up. “Of course you can always look at the mistakes, but the way we won is important. We kind of dropped the ball a little bit, but came back and scored. The problem is that after the first goal you need a while to get the engine going again. In this phase Krefeld scored four times”.

The upcoming game on Sunday is a top game. It is the battle between the first and the second place in the league – the ERC Ingolstadt is our guest.

Ken Frege