Belief in your own strength is back. Despite the tight 2:3 (1:1, 0:1, 1:1) at the end of the Olympic preliminary round against the USA, Germany’s ice hockey team feels ready for the knockout round in Beijing.
“We can build on that,” said captain Moritz Müller after “by far the best tournament performance”. As in 2018, when silver came out in the end in Pyeonchang, the selection of the German Ice Hockey Federation has to go into a decision game to get into the quarter-finals. Slovakia is the opponent on Tuesday.
“We already experienced that in 2018, the tournament is starting now,” said Müller. “We know we have the potential. The signal from the team was definitely the right one. We’ve improved in every game so far,” said attacker Patrick Hager, who had scored the early lead with a majority (2nd minute). “Now we have to step it up a notch.”
Passionate performance
In fact, the German players did a lot better compared to the 1: 5 against Canada and the 3: 2 “stabbed” against the underdog selection China on Saturday, but also too many individual mistakes that the fast talented US boys exploited. After goals from Steven Kampfer (5th), Matt Knies (25th) and Nathan Smith (43rd), Tom Kühnhackl (58th) came back too late for the passionately fighting team.
Cheered on by numerous other German athletes around Claudia Pechstein and the figure skaters, the team was aggressive from the start. The players threw themselves into every shot and even the cracks on the bench finally cheered along loudly. “We arrived emotionally,” said national coach Toni Söderholm.
A number of personnel changes by the national coach were decisive for the boost in performance against the best opponent so far, who also went straight into the quarter-finals as group winners. After the weak performances in the tournament, the Finn left the previously disappointing Daniel Pietta from Ingolstadt and Mannheim’s David Wolf in the stands and rearranged all the rows. Söderholm even did without an extra 13th striker, as Marco Nowak was still missing a defender injured. The 31-year-old received a check to the head against Canada. The player from Düsseldorf could probably play again against Slovakia on Tuesday.
Rotation im Tor
On the other hand, it was expected that Söderholm would change goal one day after the game against China – especially since Mathias Niederberger from the champions Eisbären Berlin could hardly convince so far. However, the fact that Danny aus den Birken Mannheims Felix Brückmann, who has been weak in the German Ice Hockey League for Munich this season so far, was astounding. Aus den Birken, who was in goal for the German silver coup four years ago, was not to blame for the goals conceded. For the game against Slovakia, however, there could be a change in goal again.
“Today was a big step in the right direction that we can build on,” said longtime NHL defender Korbinian Holzer, who stood out as an aggressive leader. In the end, the decisive factor for the narrow defeat despite the improvement in performance was the fast, no-frills game played by the US team, which featured many college players. Straighter than the German team, the North Americans also brought more dangerous shots on goal. (dpa)