The Eisbären got external support on Friday evening to give the team additional impetus in the play-off final against Bremerhaven. With Frank Hördler, Jens Baxmann and Laurin Braun, three former EHC professionals were in the audience, who together have 19 titles. Sven Felski and Constantin Braun are also in demand as experts at media cooperation partner Magentasport; together they have won eleven other championships.
They could all see how the club’s tenth title has come a little closer. The Berliners won the second game of this best-of-seven series with 5:3 (1:0, 3:3, 1:0) and thus equalized the overall score at 1:1. The third game continues on Sunday on the North Sea coast (3:30 p.m., Magentasport and DF1).
The first game had already shown what a big hurdle the Eisbären have to overcome if they want to lift the DEL trophy again. In the 4-2 win on Wednesday, Bremerhaven gave Serge Aubin’s team a chance to score goals. Nevertheless, the Berliners had a hard time against the very structured performance of the Penguins.
Pföderl, Urbas and Müller score a double
And in front of 14,200 spectators in the sold-out Friedrichshain Arena, Bremerhaven initially seemed very determined and ensured that Eisbären goalkeeper Jake Hildebrand was kept busy. On the host side, the trend from the first game continued and opportunities to score points were missed.
In the 19th minute, however, a large part of the audience screamed loudly. Leo Pföderl scored 1-0 for the Eisbären in the majority. He was therefore involved in all of Berlin’s goals in this final series up to this point.
And the home team, who were able to compete with their best players thanks to the return of Lean Bergmann, Morgan Ellis and Yannick Veilleux to the team, carried this momentum into the second third. With a lot of running effort and enormous pressure, they put Bremerhaven in trouble. And with the second field superiority the score was 2-0. Because of a penalty for the guests, the Eisbären played with one more field player. This time Blaine Byron took advantage (25th).
But this game also showed that the guests are extremely dangerous if you let them have their way. Suddenly the fans who had traveled with them made themselves even more noticeable than they already were after Bremerhaven’s captain and top scorer Jan Urbas reduced the score to 1:2 for his team.
Marcel Noebels injured the ice
And that was just the start of a wild exchange of blows. Just 100 seconds later, Pföderl increased the score to 3-1 with his second goal of the day, restoring a two-goal lead.
But this didn’t last another two minutes because Urbas was there again for Bremerhaven. This time the visiting team benefited from a majority. In eleven play-off games so far, they have scored at least one goal in the majority. Five minutes before the end of the second period it was suddenly 3:3. Ziga Jeglic had supposedly pressed the reset button in this game.
But this interim situation didn’t last long either. When it was expected that the next break would be balanced, the polar bears gathered again to celebrate. Jonas Müller threw himself against the plexiglass with all his might because he had made it 4-3. Shortly beforehand, however, Marcel Noebels had injured himself so badly that he was out for the rest of the game.
But despite this massive weakening, the polar bears could no longer be dissuaded from their path. With a remarkable individual performance, Müller was finally crowned the double goalscorer (47th). When the final siren finally sounded with the score at 5:3, things were still relatively reserved. After all, the next important game is on Sunday.