MUNICH – GERMANY: After a frustrating month, EHC Munich got their first win since 29 September. But before this, the fans and officials had to see a very embarrassing game at the Bavarian derby against Straubing.
The prefixes for the game were already negative for Munich. The team bus, the fan bus and a lot of private drivers were stuck in a traffic jam –just 100 kilometers away – and so the game was delayed for ten minutes.
Obviously the players were still in the bus because the first period was dominated by the home team.
As a consequence, Straubing scored the first goal. Matthew Hussey skated through the whole Munich team and had no problems putting the puck around Jochen Reimer into the goal after 12 minutes.
Whoever expected Munich would start a counterattack was disappointed. Straubing was the dominant team throughout the first period and into the opening stages of the middle frame. But suddenly, Jason Ulmer played a magnificent pass from in front of his own goal to the blue line, where Klaus Kathan waited for the puck, skated around Barry Brust and scored from nearly the goal line.
Now the game seemed to be equal, but Munich wasn’t able to get more of the game. During one of the 8 power plays, Michael Bakos fired from the blue line and the puck flew through a maze of players into the goal to the 2-1 lead.
With the goal, all hopes for Munich were broken.
After two minutes in the last period, Markus Hundhammer deflected a shot from Ryan Ramsay for Straubing’s third goal. With this, the game was done for both teams and nothing more happened – except a fight between Straubing’s Daoust and Martin Buchwieser which ended equal, but Daoust was jumping and cheering like he was happy that he survived.
The final game of the month was the last chance for EHC Munich to get a 3-point-win in this month.
The only problem? They had to play the champion from last year; the Ice bears of Berlin, the team with the highest budget in the league. But Munich had a big motivation help cause the disastrous jerseys – which caused the dismissal of the Operation Manager, a kind of revolution from the fans and a meeting between officials and fans – were changed and the team is now playing in the New York Rangers-styled blue jerseys from pre-season. 
And with this jersey, Munich played like an NHL team. They pushed forward, finished their checks at the boards and avoided unnecessary penalties. Berlin seemed a bit impressed and didn’t really know what to do in the first six minutes.
Munich had an early power play and Jason Ulmer picked up the puck at the side, crossed the slot and moved the puck between the legs of Kevin Nastiuk into the goal. This goal opened the game and from that point on the puck was moving from one side to another. The next goal was scored by Berlins Stefan Ustorf, who shot the puck under the bar with a wrist shot from the middle of the slot. But Munich wasn’t shocked and five minutes later Felix Peterman fired from the blue line and scored.
And as the game portended minutes earlier, Berlin was fighting back. One minute after the Peterman rocket, Florian Busch fired from the blue line, Reimer deflected the puck directly on the stick of Darin Olver and he had no problem scoring the equalizer.
With the 2-2 the game went to the second period and this should be one of the best periods which Munich ever had in the DEL.
Munich stayed disciplined on defense and used a quick counterattack to score. And Berlin fell to this tactic. Three minutes were played, when Martin Buchwieser and Eric Schneider had a 2-on-1 and Schneider scored his sixth goal of the season. And just one minute later, Brandon Dietrich and Buchwieser had the same situation with the same result. The 5-2 lead came 10 minutes later when Christian Wichert came from the penalty bench and had a 2-on-0 break with Schneider who scored his second goal of the evening.
Eight seconds before the horn sounded James Sharrow did the reducer. In the last period, Munich played defensive hockey with just seven shots on the Berlin goal. The defensive effort worked as Berlin wasn’t able to score again. With this game, the team excused itself for the Straubing game and a number of disappointing games in October.
Jochen Reimer was excellent once again for Munich.
The next step was the win against the Cologne Sharks. Philip Gogulla gave the Sharks an early after just two minutes but former Cologne player, Bryan Adams, and Eric Schneider brought the 3 points with them back to Bavaria.
The last games before the German Cup break will be against Düsseldorf and Iserlohn this weekend. At the German Cup, Munich players Reimer and Felix Petermann will play for the German national squad, assistant coach Maurizio Mansi will help as video analyst the German national coaches, where Munich’s head coach Pat Cortina will assist national coach Koelliker.
Robin.Hilger@prohockeynews.com
You must be logged in to post a comment.