Adler Mannheim and Red Bull Salzburg both suffered rather surprising defeats last Thursday, and one week later got revenge against the same teams on home ice, beating Neman and SonderjyskE, respectively. Black Wings Linz weren't quite as successful against TPS, though they did manage to take a point. Also, the ZSC Lions became the fifth team to secure a CHL playoff berth, while Vaxjo are on the brink.
Vaxjo Lakers 4–2 ERC Ingolstadt
HIGHLIGHTS
John Laliberte set up Brandon Buck to open the scoring on the power play, and then when Buck assisted on Laliberte's goal late in the second to bring Ingolstadt within a goal, we were in for a nervous third period. They had a chance to tie it on a late power play, but Liam Reddox's shorthanded empty-netter finally relieved the pressure. Ilkka Heikkinen had 2 assists for Vaxjo, who now need only one more point to secure their spot among the CHL's final 32 teams.
“Overall it was a pretty good effort by our team,” said Ingolstadt's Buck. “I think we made a few mistakes kind of early, we had a few times where we fell asleep defensively and gave them a little too much space but for the most part we played pretty well. We wanted to make sure that we were in their face the whole game and not let them have a whole lot of setups behind their net and in.”
“I think that for most of the game we kept high pressure on them,” explained Vaxjo forward Patrik Lundh, who was held pointless in this game but still leads the CHL with 6 points. “They had some pretty fast counter-attacks where they tried to get a long pass from the defencemen to their forwards and they got through a few times so we tried to tighten up as soon as we saw that they did that. The first period wasn’t very good from us, we didn’t get the intensity we would like but during the rest of the game we might have got some more energy from the goals and the second and third periods I think were good.”
ZSC Lions Zurich 6–1 Gap Rapaces
HIGHLIGHTS
The ZSC Lions had their hands full with Gap on the CHL's opening night, but were in full control on home ice in the re-match. Pat Doherty scored Gap's lone goal in the 16th minute to tie the score, but then Zurich scored five in a row to pull away. Chris Baltisberger and Luca Cunti each scored twice and Robert Nilsson added 3 assists.
“I thought tonight we knew their team a little bit better, and so we were able to understand what they were trying to do a bit more,” ZSC coach Marc Crawford said in explanation as to why his team was so much better against Gap this time around. “Our depth carried us tonight, with four lines that are all capable of scoring – although one line was dominant tonight. When you have an advantage like that, you have to make the most of it. We wanted to advance, we've accomplished this now with one game left, so we've done what we wanted.”
“We have a lot of players in their first experience at the top level in France, and tonight we made life difficult for ourselves coughing up the puck and not getting it out of our own zone,” explained Gap coach Luciano Basile. “Our PP wasn't good enough tonight. Quick goals can happen against a team as skilled as Zurich, but we could have given ourselves a better chance if we'd been smarter with the puck – but it's all experience for us that helps us to get better.”
Black Wings Linz 2–3 TPS Turku (OT)
HIGHLIGHTS
Brett McLean and Tero Koskiranta scored 7 seconds apart midway through the third period to turn a 1–1 game into 2–2. The game went to overtime where Eric Perrin scored with just 39 seconds on the clock to put TPS on top of Group G with 5 points – Linz have their first 2.
“We made a step in the right direction tonight,” said Linz captain Philipp Lukas. “We played a way better game than in Turku with lots of chances to win. We ran a little bit out of gas at the end too, but that's the way it goes and it definitely wasn't a bad performance from us tonight.”
“Tonight was very hard against a very hardworking team,” said TPS head coach Ari-Pekka Selin, who agreed that “Linz were much better than in Turku, and the result was in doubt. A high tempo with a great atmosphere here with great fans, it was a good experience for us.”
Red Bull Salzburg 7–2 SonderjyskE Vojens
HIGHLIGHTS
In one of many re-matches on Thursday, Salzburg got perhaps the greatest revenge by thumping SonderjyskE 7–2 at home. Benn Ferriero and John Hughes did the bulk of the damage offensively, with Ferriero scoring 4 goals, all assisted by Hughes. This result means that all three teams in Group C have 3 points after Game Day 3.
Salzburg coach Daniel Ratushny felt that the key to his team's win was “very good offence today. We played well with lots of scoring chances and credit to the team for a great game. The difference today was that we were more dangerous offensively.”
By contrast, SonderjyskE coach Dan Ceman felt that “we played too passive. I thought we showed them a bit too much respect early in the game, and got outplayed in the opening period. We had to keep them to the outside and didn't do that like we did in the last game. They were fired up to beat us today, and we weren't aggressive enough.”
Adler Mannheim 2–1 Neman Grodno
HIGHLIGHTS
After opening their CHL season with a loss in Grodno, Mannheim has now won twice in a row, including this one on home ice in the re-match win Neman to take the lead in what is proving to be a very tight Group I. A CHL-record crowd of 7,219 came out to cheer on Die Adler, and they were treated to an intense game. After the home side took the early lead, Sergei Yakimovich tied it for Neman late in the second period, but Ryan MacMurchy netted the game-winner in the first minute of the third.