DEL start brings some surprises

21 Sep 2013 | Markus Nisius

Three game days into the season, it is time to evaluate the start of the favourites and check out the surprises. While at the bottom of the DEL two teams meet, which you could expect there, the favourites are not yet in the top positions.

Let’s start bottom-up. Düsseldorf knew going into the season it will be another tough challenge for them this year as the financial situation did not allow any spectacular acquisitions in the off-season. But what happened in the first three games was disappointing even with very low expectations. 1-5 in Krefeld, 0-6 at home against Munich and yesterday evening 2-6 in Hamburg. Granted, all three teams should be found among the Play-Off-spots later on in the season, but the way these games were lost might frighten some DEG-fans. And so was Corey Mapes, the youngster on Düsseldorf’s side, who scored his first DEL goal yesterday, but couldn’t really celebrate it as the game was already lost by then.

One place above them we find Schweninngen. A similar situation here: Everybody knew it won’t get easy, but at least in the first game in Mannheim they didn’t look out of place. A 1-2 in Mannheim definitely isn’t a bad result, when it is your first game back in the DEL after ten years. But then the day-to-day business started to kick in after this rivalry against the Eagles and a 1-4 against Krefeld and a 0-4 against Iserlohn brought them into the second last place.

We already discussed two of the three games that made the Krefeld Penguins shine bright so far. Especially the line of Kevin Clark, Daniel Pietta and Adam Courchaine creates a lot of offensive fire power. Yesterday they even managed to sink the champions from Berlin 2-0. Shutting out Berlin also requires a strong defensive effort and Krefeld is currently giving the proof that they can also be strong on defense without Christian Ehrhoff’s help.

The top-rated teams before the season have yet to find their rhythm. While Mannheim lost two games after the win against Schweninngen on opening night, Cologne is becoming the league’s specialist for shootouts. All three games so far went the full distance and after their loss in the season premiere against Nuremberg, they learned and won the next two shootouts with game-winning goals from Alexander Weiß and John Tripp. By the way: The first win for Cologne came in the first meeting between them and Mannheim.

Berlin however is closest to its top-shape. Before they lost in Krefeld they already fought down Ingolstadt 3-2 and the high-scoring machine from Iserlohn 7-5.

For tomorrow all eyes should be on the match-up between 2^nd placed Nuremberg and Eisbären Berlin.