Dresden Ice Lions First Victory Under New Head Coach Petteri Kilpivaara

Freiburg/Dresden. The Dresden Ice Lions have finally turned the corner and celebrated their first victory under their new head coach Petteri Kilpivaara. In an intense game, the Blue-Whites defeated the Freiburg Wolves 2-1 (1-1, 1-0, 0-0) in front of 2,693 spectators. Three very important points that will hopefully initiate a turnaround.

“The first third was relatively even with few chances on both sides. We came out strong in the second third and deserved to equalize. In the third period we played very compactly and solidly. We wanted to be stable here and not neglect the offensive. We succeeded; above all, we had the ultimate will to win the game. I’m proud of my team,” said Petteri Kilpivaara after the game.

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The Blue-Whites were able to successfully fulfill the first part of their plan this weekend, and now part two with the next threesome will follow on Sunday (5 p.m.) at home against the Selber Wölfe.

The Dresden team, with Janik Schwendener in goal again this time, had a lot planned for the game. But after just eight minutes there was another cold shower. Filip Reisnecker had almost shot from the blue line and Goldhelm Parker Bowles was exactly right and netted the small round ball to give the Wolves a 1-0 lead. Afterwards, events wavered back and forth. The Elbestadt team played well, but lacked the decisive punch in front of the goal. If the puck did happen to be dangerous in front of the hosts’ goal, 23-year-old keeper Luis Benzing was there.

But three minutes before the half-time siren, the Blue-Whites managed to equalize. Tom Knobloch put the puck into the net from an extremely acute angle from outside. Since the disc immediately bounced back, the referees tried to use video evidence, but it confirmed nothing other than 1-1 (17th).

Dresden Ice Lions defend narrow lead

At the end and beginning of the middle third, the Ice Lions survived the Wolves’ first power play unscathed and then increasingly took over the reins. They put Freiburg under constant pressure, acted much more aggressively in the duels and didn’t let anything go on defense. If the Breisgauers did get through, they had to cut their teeth on Schwendener, who was just as secure a support as his counterpart Luis Benzing.

When the spectators were almost on their way to the beer stand, the people of Dresden struck. The Eislöwen Goldhelm Johan Porsberger moved on the right side towards the opposing goal, passed in the middle to Tomas Andres, who was running along, and he sank the disc into Benzing’s goal 18 seconds before the half-time siren, giving the Blue-Whites their first 2-1 lead. In any case, that was a well-deserved reward for the good second third of the Dresden Ice Lions.

In the final section, the home team tried everything to at least equalize. But they couldn’t cope with the Dresden defense, which this time was incredibly tough. Even when Simon Karlsson received the second penalty of the game in the 56th minute in this extremely fair game, the Ice Lions didn’t let anything go wrong. They blocked the opponent’s shots or Schwendener parried.

Then even David Rundqvist, who was outnumbered (57th), had the chance to finally close the bag, but the Swede couldn’t crown his solo effort with the 3-1, because Benzing was also at the post. One minute the Breisgauers had another chance to equalize through Calvin Pokorny, but he also failed. In the end, the home team put everything on one card, took their goalie out in favor of another field player, but they were no longer able to achieve anything worth counting, because the Dresden team defended their narrow lead with “man and mouse”.

DNN