DEL – Ice Tigers take over the lead

Friday’s games in the DEL brought a new top team for the league. The Nuremberg IceTigers could score another six goals to beat the Augsburg Panthers 6-3 in the storied Curt-Frenzel-stadium. Connor James, Ryan Caldwell and Evan Kaufmann all had a 3-point-night and led the team to the top. They passed the Krefeld Penguins, which lost in another Bavarian DEL town, the European Trophy team from Ingolstadt. And Ingolstadt even managed to shut out the Penguins, which had been a high scoring team so far. But on Friday Timo Pielmeier turned away all 17 shots he had to face from Krefeld’s offense for his first DEL shut out. The most beautiful goal of the evening came with 3:40 minutes left in the game when John Laliberte first failed to beat Thomas Duba in his breakaway attempt and then, when finding himself behind and Duba still lying in front of the goal, deciding to use Duba’s pads as a deflecting device to send the puck into the net for the final 3-0.

Another team that passed Krefeld yesterday are the Grizzly Adams Wolfsburg. By sending the champions Berlin even deeper into a crisis they secured the second place in the league for the moment. Brett Palin and former German national player Sebastian Furchner with two goals enabled the Grizzlies to grab another three points away from the always hungry polar bears, which find themselves in the ninth spot only now. Way too far down for their understanding. At least they could avoid the destiny of being shut out thanks to Julian Talbot’s goal half way through the final period.

But one team is even deeper in a state of crisis right now. Adler Mannheim is now in second last place due to Schweninngen’s first win of the regulation win of the season against Köln. Tyler Beechey and Thomas Pielmeier scored within 27 seconds early in the second period, a number that could not be matched with the Sharks lone goal from Philip Riefers. The 2-1 let the Wild Wings jump to place 12.

Tomorrow evening the DEL will continue with the rematch of the 2013 finals as Eisbären Berlin hosts the Kölner Haie.

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