In today's second encounter vs. Team Austria (who were still playing without Komarek/Zwerger), Team Germany took revenge for thursday's 2:3-loss in Regensburg, and won with a clear 5:1. Due to a strong performance from Dr. Drai's 1st line, who again had speedy winger
Freddy Tiffels on his leftwing, while skillful powerforward
Leo Pföderl manned the rightwing, and was replaced by nifty NHL-centre/wing
Dominik Kahún during the second half of the match.
Leon Draisaitl (3G+1A) scored some sick goals for the hat-trick, among other things a baseball-like 1st goal for the game winner, and a beautiful one-handed tip-in after a nice tic-tac-toe-combination with Kahún and Tiffels. Once again he showed great chemistry with his buddy Frederik Tiffels (2A) (you could almost call it
blind understanding) who very much looked like he'll make the final roster. The same can be said about Dominik Kahún (3A), who looks like a very good fit for Drai's 1st PP-unit.
Kahún's linemates
Lean Bergmann (1G+1A) and
Marc Michaelis (1A) both had a good match as well. Leftwing Bergmann continued his impressive scoring streak, tallying his 6th goal in as many exhibition games, and it wouldn't surprise me, if he makes the final cut as well.
Other than that, we saw a convincing performance of the german 4th line around
Gerrit Fauser, versatile LW/C
Marcel Noebels and surprisingly strong
David Elsner.
The only line which struggled to find chemistry was the newly formed third line with
Stefan Loibl,
Dominik Bokk and
Fabio Pfohl at centre. Loibl had one good scene, when he was stopped on a breakaway by Austria's strong netminder
David Kickert.
Given we haven't seen much from Loibl and Bokk during the last two matches, both will have to fear to not make the next cut, as we are now awaiting the arrival of the last wave of forwards from Mannheim and Munich (
Markus Eisenschmid,
Matthias Plachta,
David Wolf,
Patrick Hager,
Yasin Ehliz,
Frank Mauer).
It'd be a shame, if Bokk didn't make it. He possesses outstanding individual skills, and I still think he'd make a difference for our special teams. Crossing fingers that Söderholm gives him another look at Kahún's, Hager's or even Draisaitl's RW.
The defense saw some line shuffling while only core players
Moritz Müller and
Korbinian Holzer stayed together as a pair.
We witnessed a much better effort in terms of limiting Austria's chances, some good scenes from offensive defender
Simon Sezemsky, who hit the post on the PP and
Stephan Daschner. As I wrote before, the defense is the weakest part of this team, and we'll likely see coach Söderholm adding
Yannik Seidenberg,
Daryl Boyle,
Moritz Seider, and probably
Dennis Reul instead of
Sinan Akdag, who it looks like is injured cause he didn't play the last few matches of the DEL finals.
In goal,
Dustin Strahlmeier made good for his weaker performance vs. the Czechs. We'll have to see whether Söderholm decides to bring in one the oldies
Danny aus den Birken and
Dennis Endras, the latter being just named playoff MVP with 4 shutouts in 14 matches, a GAA of 1.57 and a SVS% of 92,5%, or whether he stays with Treutle/Niederberger/Strahlmeier as long as NHL reinforcements are possible. A lot will depend on continuing favourable developments in the NHL playoffs, as we are hoping for the Avs' and Isles' elimination.
Scoreboard
0-1 Haudum PP1 (Wolf, Rauchenwald)
1-1 Pföderl PP1 (Draisaitl, Kahún)
2-1 Draisaitl (Tiffels, M.Müller)
3-1 Draisaitl (Bergmann, Elsner)
4-1 Bergmann (Kahún, Michaelis)
5-1 Draisaitl (Kahún, Tiffels)