The one question that is increasing from game to game is actually quite simple. At the same time, it is difficult to answer – even for those who are particularly predestined for this. Chris Desousa therefore smiled before he tried: “I don’t know.” The question that the EHC Red Bull Munich has accompanied for about two weeks now is: What did Don Jackson do with the team? With a team whose only constant was the inconsistency so far. Until Jackson gave his comeback on the coaching bench.
Everything that the Munich game had shaped for months seems to be wiped away with Jackson’s presence. On Sunday afternoon, the current selection was for the seventh time under Jackson in the German Ice Hockey League (DEL) – and won for the seventh time. Against the Frankfurt Löwen, who had previously won four times in series, there was a 5: 3 victory in the sold-out SAP Garden, the Munich third parties are further third in the table. As a reminder: In January it looked completely different in the tabular, when the EHC even threatened to fall out of the top six.
But what makes this Jackson effect, what does this 68-year-old man from Minnesota have, who had actually ended his career as the most successful coach in the DEL story in spring 2023, which others didn’t have? Back to Desousa’s smile, after which he attempted to explain. “Don is just a winner,” said the striker.
Konrad Abeltshauser tried it on Sunday afternoon after an “Es-is-brutal-heavy-heavy explanation”. And who manages to “get the things that are important to him immediately”. In addition, he had been “never really gone” in the past two years: “He was always there, he knows the players, he knows the team.”
The first attack formation in particular has been spraying before Jackson’s return before a game -mood
Although Jackson tactically did not carry out any major interventions, he, as a robust defender, gained the defensive with the Edmonton Oilers on the side of Wayne Gretzky with the Edmonton Oilers. In the seven victories, the Munich team only conceded twelve goals, goalkeeper Mathias Niederberger fended off around 94 percent of the shots on his box. “We talk a lot about the defensive,” said Jackson. This defensive stability also gives the offensive security – and this self -confidence in the playful skills that are undoubtedly in the squad can be seen increasingly.
A special joy of playing has been spraying the nominally first attack formation of the Munich. The Trio Chris Desousa, Taro Hirose and Yasin Ehliz had accumulated impressive 13 goals and 27 scoring points in the first six Jackson games. Desousa scored in each of the first six games under Jackson.
And this series continued against Frankfurt: After a little more than four minutes, Ehliz scored 1-0 for preliminary work by Desousa; It was a special goal for the German international, because with 128 goals he was the same with Trevor Parkes at the head of the Munich Del record goal scorer list. Shortly before the end of the game, Ehliz then grabbed the sole record with number 129. Andreas Eder, Maximilian Kastner and captain Patrick Hager scored the other goals.
The aggressive Forecheck, which characterized Jackson’s successful times in Munich, is again effective. Frankfurt coach Tom Rowe said on Sunday that Munich had “excellent”: “We could not handle their pressure.” In addition to the defensive improvements and tactical adjustments, Jackson’s return also accompany parameters that cannot be watered in numbers or statistics. Jackson “calmed down,” said the EHC coach Pierre Allard, to whom Jackson left the medial spotlight at the press conference after the 5-2 victory against Schwenningen. So he had done it in the last game before the break in Düsseldorf, when he sent Ben Smith, his second assistant coach, to the press conference.
A word that falls from different sides again and again when it comes to Jackson: Aura. Not only his players keep standing out, but also the competition. Alexander Sulzer, once active as a player under Jackson and today coach of the Fischtown Pinguins in Bremerhaven, a direct competitor of the Munich team, said recently: “Jackson has such an incredible broadcast on the game and the league.” In addition to the “great aura” in question The big gift of creating an atmosphere in the cabin “that every player likes to come and have fun”. The Canadian goalkeeper Evan Fitzpatrick and US defender Will Riedell will soon experience this, whose obligation was announced on Sunday. Fitzpatrick was already on the bench against Frankfurt.
Jackson himself says to all of this: not much. He looked from game to game, he said on Sunday, he was difficult to look ahead and back. The boys, he concluded, “believe what we do”. Not more.