MUNICH, GERMANY – Promoted team against top dog. Euro budget and passion against money; or just: EHC Munich against Adler Mannheim. And as big as the differences between both teams are – they are aiming for the same thing; the Play-offs.
The game started with a lot of speed, but without big chances on both sides. The best chance went to Schymainski, when he hit the crossbar angle. At this time it seemed to be a duell between the forwards of the EHC and the Adler goalie – Frederick Braithwaite. The Canadian denied chance after chance while his teammates didn’t bring to much danger to Sebastian Elwing on the Munich side. In the 12th minute, Kyle Helms was able to get the puck beside Braithwaite into the goal. After a pass from Gyori from the face-off circle into the slot where the small German-Canadian stood alone and he scored. But the joy didn’t last long, the scorer wasn’t even called by the announcer as the 100 fans from Mannheim cheered before Michael Glumac overpowered Elwing and hit the equalizer.
After just 2 minutes in the second period, Glumac was jubilant again. The Munich defense was still in the dressing room as Glumac was totally free, but with a little luck he put the puck under Elwings glove into the net. This goal broke the game for the home team totally and the upcoming 10 minutes belonged to the guests, right until a 5-3 power play for Munich. EHC was able to stay in the attacking zone but without creating any big chances with two men more. Just after Mannheim got 4 men on the ice, the 2-2 happened. Upcoming star Martin Buchwieser stood perfect, when Jordan Webb passes right in front of the goal. But again the result didn’t last long; Craig MacDonald increases the result to a 1-goal-advantage for the guests. Munich’s coach Pat Cortina said after the game, that there were 5 spectators more in the hall during the second period – his players! Except Elwing, who also saved a penalty of Dimitriakos in this period.
Elwings team may have got a motivating speech in the break, cause they started the third period with a lot of effort and surprised the Mannheim team obviously. After just 41 seconds, new national player Buchwieser gave a revenge pass for the 2-2 to Jordan Webb; he scored and cheered like always. Within the next minutes the favorites had to thank their goalie Braithwaite that the result wasn’t 5 or 6 to 3 already. With the result 3-3 it went to the overtime with Munich starting with Bryan Addams on the penalty bench.
Munich has 9 short handed goals and is first in the league, a fact that the Adler players maybe didn’t know. They lost a face-off in the neutral zone, Julien ran with the puck along the penalty boxes, wasn’t stopped by anyone, passed the puck across to Mike Kompon, and he gave the 4075 fans in the Olympic ice-hall a upside-down feeling.
After this surprising win, Munich is surprisingly still in fifth place and in good position for getting into the playoffs, while Mannheim is unexpected deep down in eighth.
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