Wolfsburg lost its magic

Adler Mannheim vs Wolfsburg Grizzly Adams 4-0, series 3-0

The surprise of the quarterfinals, that managed to sweep the second seeded EHC München, might have been broken by Adler Mannheim and their strong comeback wins in game 1 and 2 already. In game 3 Mannheim did not leave Wolfsburg any chance and skipped the usual 3-0 lead for Wolfsburg. Instead they started scoring themselves on a powerplay at the half time mark of period 1. Andrew Joudrey got the puck in the slot, let goalie Felix Brückmann slide in the wrong direction with a nice move and could easily net it in. Midway through the second period Mirko Höfflin finished a rush of the Eagles for the 2-0. An early powerplay goal from Jochen Hecht in the last period brought the decision as Dennis Endras could turn away all 16 shots he had to face tonight and Dennis Reul added an empty net goal for the final result of 4-0.

ERC Ingolstadt vs Düsseldorfer EG 3-2 OT, series 2-1

During the first 20 minutes the spectators saw a lot of good scoring opportunities, which were wasted especially by Ingolstadt. So it was Düsseldorf getting the first goal of the night when Andreas Martinsen intercepted the puck and sent it down the ice all through the neutral zone where stay-at-home defender Shawn Belle was all open and put it past Timo Pielmeier like a forward.

After the break Ingolstadt showed some learning aptitude. Now they were more efficient with their scoring chances and turned the game around. 8 minutes in, Christoph Gawlik and Thomas Greilinger  pounded a couple of shots at Tyler Beskorowany on a powerplay and finally it ended up with Brandon Buck, who was able to put it in an open net for the equalizer. Four minutes later Düsseldorf was on the powerplay, but John Laliberte caught a breakaway, could get Beskorowany down to the ice and chipped the rebound over to Dustin Friesen, who came rushing in and had another open net to score into.

The 2-1 lead was well deserved for Ingolstadt, but was not supposed to hold on very long in the last period. At the 41:27 mark Travis Turnbull took a shot through traffic and beat Pielmeier for the 2-2. A lot of penalties should follow, but none of them resulted in another goal for either team in regulation.

After 17 minutes in overtime Patrick Hager suddenly got the puck presented on his stick right in front of the goal and he just had to stick it past Beskorowany. As seen many times before it was the first team to make a mistake that lost the game. Düsseldorf did not block out the slot and 3 men could not keep Hager from getting Ingolstadt’s third goal.

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