Sharks bounce back from Friday’s loss against Wild Wings

It was a tough start into the weekend for the Kölner Haie on Friday. After a perfect last weekend with wins against both contenders for the league’s top spot Mannheim and Nürnberg, they had a home game against the last placed Wild Wings from the Black Forest. What seemed to be an easy three-pointer turned out to be a disappointing evening. Schwenningen had the perfect game plan (like they already did in the first meeting of the season) and played a strong defensive game not allowing the Sharks a lot. But in all periods they could score one goal themselves on break aways to take an unexpected 3-0 win in Cologne.

Sunday’s schedule wanted Cologne to get on the road to the other team that surprised the league on Friday. Straubing’s Tigers could bring an equally unexpected 4-0 win from Mannheim to lower Bavaria and were quite optimistic before the game.

In the starting minutes it was indeed the Tigers coming out strong as they usually do at home. They tried to set the tone of the game, but it was the Sharks honor to score first. After 3 minutes Alexander Weiss marked his 8^th goal of the season with a nice turnaround move and buried the puck with the backhand. A couple minutes later a bad check by Sharks’ youngster Daniel Schmölz ended the game early for Tiger Sandro Schönberger, who had to leave to the hospital with a concussion. Obviously the crowd did not like the fact that Schmölz was not penalized for this check and being known for their emotional support from this point the noise level grew in the arena. The game became a real battle in the meantime.

After 16 minutes the game added another curiosity to its record. Andreas Holmqvist got the puck to his head from where it deflected into the goal beating Jason Bacashihua the second time for the night.

Three minutes into the last period Straubing regained confidence as Blaine Down’s 14th of the season could cut the lead in half. But Cologne reacted soon and came back with three rather unusual goals in the 2nd period. First Torsten Ankert scored with a Ping Pong goal that beat Bacashihua from a sharp angle on his short side.

After exactly 35 minutes defender Moritz Müller intercepted the puck on middle ice and finished his break away with a nice move passing the only left defender and then another nice deke to go top shelf on Bacashihua’s right side. Later in the interview he was quite happy to see the replay as he – not really known for his scoring skills – joked that he had a black out in this scene and didn’t really recall what he was doing. Sharks’ top scorer Chris Minard added the fifth goal with a volley out of the air on the power play at the end of the period. This goal pretty much sealed the deal as the last period went by rather unspectacular with just one more goal by Daniel Schmölz to make it 6-1 win for the Kölner Haie.

The win means three more points difference in the standings to the second team for Cologne as Nürnberg lost its home game against Schwenningen 4-1, but coach Uwe Krupp was not too happy with the game as they also lost captain John Tripp and Moritz Müller due to injuries.

Another surprise of the weekend was witnessed in Wolfsburg where champion Berlin went down 0-8. Tyler Haskins took part in 4 goals. With this disaster Berlin hit rock bottom of a damaged season so far.

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