Red Bull Munich has taken another step towards its fourth championship title in the German Ice Hockey League.
The best of the main round won impressively and superiorly with 7:1 (4:1, 2:0, 1:0) against ERC Ingolstadt despite an early deficit and presented in the inner Bavarian best-of-seven series before the next game on Tuesday ( 7:30 p.m. / MagentaSport) to 2: 0.
Konrad Abeltshauser (1st, 10th), Filip Varejcka (2nd) and Maximilian Kastner (3rd) turned the tide after Maurice Edwards (1st) fell behind early on in the first third in favor of Munich, who in the first duel of the two of the best in the preliminary round on Friday thanks to a 2:1 lead. Austin Ortega (29th), Yasin Ehliz (37th) and Justin Schütz (53rd) followed up with more goals.
The supposed outsider from Ingolstadt had shown himself combative after the defeat at the start. “You can see: They are absolutely beatable. If we have the momentum on our side, we are the better team,” said Leon Hüttl and promised after his team’s dominant final third: “We’ll start the next game the way we started here have.”
The people from Ingolstadt initially succeeded excellently. Edwards made the dream start after a little over half a minute, but the joy of the Schanzer lasted just 14 seconds.
Red Bull Munich strikes back
First Abeltshauser equalized in direct return, only 40 seconds later Varejcka followed up. Ingolstadt was noticeably knocked out, Munich exploited this mercilessly and increased to 3:1 after a mistake by goalkeeper Kevin Reich, who had been so strong in the previous playoffs. Only 140 seconds had been played at this point.
The EHC remained the leading team and scored the fourth goal through Abeltshauser. Jonas Stettmer, who replaced Reich in the Ingolstadt goal after 15 minutes, saved his team from going even further behind when he saved a penalty from Chris DeSousa (16th).
Munich then took it a little easier, but remained ice cold and filled the half-dozen in the second third. The frustration of the Ingolstadt team was clearly noticeable, fists even flew between Mathew Bodie and Munich captain Patrick Hager.
