Something is growing in Ingolstadt. In his first Panther season in 2022/23, head coach Mark French led the ERC to runner-up and wanted to build on this success last year. With a lot of possession and game design, due to a lack of offensive power, only a disappointing ninth place in the table resulted and in the end the elimination in the quarter-finals against Bremerhaven. In our team check, we’ll look at what those responsible changed in the summer to ideally end up in the final again.
The transfer activity reads quite balanced: 13 departures, twelve new arrivals. In goal, the position of third goalie was swapped from Lukas Schulte to Nico Pertuch, otherwise the trust lies in the strong Michael Garteig and backup Devin Williams. In defense, Mat Bodie, Leon Hüttl and captain Fabio Wagner remained on board, while Colton Jobke (Iserlohn), Daniel Schweiger (Schwenningen) and Kevin Maginot (Frankfurt) looked for new employers within the league. The newly signed David Farrance moved to Finland, but the future of Maury Edwards is unknown. Meanwhile, ex-Adler Philipp Preto, who celebrated runner-up with Bremerhaven in April, is new to the team. With Morgan Ellis, a stable defender returned to the Danube. The 32-year-old Canadian was already active for the ERC in the 2020/21 season and then worked for the Eisbären Berlin for three years. His compatriot Alex Breton joined the team from Kosice, Slovakia, where the 27-year-old defender demonstrated strong offensive qualities.
With Riley Sheen, DEL top scorer 21/22 with 40 goals, Kenny Agostino, most recently 48 points from 48 games at Düsseldorfer EG, and Daniel Schmölz, equipped with a penchant for “dirty work” in front of the opposing goal, there were three players in attack brought in to eradicate last season’s final weakness. The losses of Mirko Höfflin, who didn’t get going and moved to Schwenningen, Travis St. Denis, who was only able to build on his form from Straubing to a limited extent and has now returned to the Tigers, and Casey Bailey (Graz) should be overcome be. With the established Wayne Simpson, national player Wojciech Stachowiak, leading player Daniel Pietta and Charles Bertrand, Ingolstadt has sufficient depth and breadth in the squad.
Those responsible definitely took a risk with the other new additions. Myles Powell comes from the second Swedish league, Abbott Girduckis from DEL2 club Regensburg, youngster Luca Hauf from the North American youth league WHL and Austen Keating from the lower-class ECHL. In addition, the young brothers Philipp (23) and Johannes Krauß (21) were reunited. But the mix seems to be right. Because the start of the season went really well for the Schanzer. After six games, the Panthers say hello from the top of the table.
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