Sinan Akdag made the best publicity for himself with two goals against Augsburg. Photo: vaf
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From Rainer Kundel
Mannheim. Jan-Axel Alavaara, the sports manager the Adler Mannheim, was able to tick the double round in the DEL-Südgruppe on the afternoon of his 46th birthday. After the 4-2 win against the Augsburg Panthers, the blue-white-reds have the best record across the group with 58 points (average 2.41).
The fact that the north leader Eisbären Berlin scored 15 more goals with only 52 points is due to the significantly better power play rate (27 to 14 percent) of the capital city. “To put it mildly, we still have a lot of potential here,” said Pavel Gross, describing his team’s construction site. However, that is not the only shortcoming, says the coach. “Our switching game can also get better, we have the staff. To get out of your third, you need four or five good passes, we didn’t succeed against Augsburg.”
The opinions of the defenders also differed here. While double goal scorer Sinan Akdag (“In the last third we cleverly defended the lead”) put managing the lead in the foreground, colleague Thomas Larkin favors another variant. “We are best when we play the game ourselves because any mistake can be decisive when it comes to the short playoffs.” In view of Akdag’s strengths in being well involved in the offensive, the question of the future of the 31-year-old arises. “I love Mannheim and have been here for seven years,” said the Rosenheim native with Turkish roots.
In 2014, the then manager Teal Fowler signed the defender from Krefeld, where he was a rather blank slate. In Mannheim, under the direction of Geoff Ward, Akdag developed rapidly and became an important component in the 2015 championship team. “I try to do a lot and interpret my role offensively and defensively,” is how the business economist (focus on industrial psychology) describes his task.
Pavel Gross has already pointed out that he considers the many breaks between games to be a waste of time at the expense of longer playoffs. Before the first North-South comparison in the home game against the Wolfsburg Grizzlys on Monday next week, the players will be given two days off. On Wednesday everyone trains individually, from Thursday four days of team training are planned.
“You can’t believe how quickly the players forget some things, be it after a three-day or two-week break,” wonders Gross and therefore lets the whole program run through again: one-on-one, build-up, passing game, outnumbered and outnumbered. Also because in the following weeks, with 14 games in 27 days and more travel kilometers than before, the focus will be on regeneration.
The dates of the eagles in the gearing round: March 22nd against Wolfsburg, March 24th in Bremerhaven, March 25th in Wolfsburg, March 29th against Iserlohn, March 30th against Düsseldorf, April 1st in Iserlohn, April 3rd against Cologne, April 5th against Bremerhaven, April 8th against Düsseldorf April in Cologne, April 9 in Düsseldorf, April 11 against Berlin, April 13 in Krefeld, April 16 against Berlin, April 18 against Krefeld.
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