Eisbären Berlin have swept their two-game homestand against Czech opponents, shutting out Sparta Prague on Game Day 4 to move up to eight points. For the second-straight game, Sparta outshot their opponents on the road but came away empty-handed and are not in trouble of missing the Playoffs with just four points.

Jake Hildebrand made 36 saves for the shutout.

After killing off an early penalty, Eisbären opened the scoring on a delayed penalty to Sparta at 6:45. Mitchell Reinke made a nice move to avoid a check in the high slot and dished to Markus Niemeläinen going to the net, who finished the play.

Sparta had their chances in the opening period with 17 shots on goal, thanks to three powerplays, but Hildebrand stood tall in goal.

Eisbären went up 2-0 early in the second period. Liam Kirk beat a defenceman wide and got a chance in close on Josef Kořenář, which the Czech goalie stopped. But with Kořenář down on the ice, Blaine Byron followed up and put in the rebound.

From that point, Berlin tightened up defensively and made it very difficult for Sparta to get quality scoring chances. For their part, Sparta didn’t seem to panic, but they started to play with more urgency in the last half of the third period.

With about six minutes to play, David Vitouch drove hard to the net with the puck and Hildebrand stopped him. For the most part, though the Eisbären goalie got a good look at the shots, thanks to his defence.

Finally, Berlin got a chance the other way and with 3:31 to play, they put the game away with a 3-0 goal. Off the rush, Frederik Tiffels’ initial shot was stopped by Kořenář, but the rebound went to a wide-open Gabriel Fontaine that the Sparta goalie had no chance on.

Sparta got one last powerplay with 2:01 to play, and under CHL rules, they had the potential to score three powerplay goals. But despite having a 6-on-4 advantage for the full two minutes with Kořenář on the bench, they weren’t able to get even one.