Halle overtakes Tilburg and is now second

​Somehow the Hamburg Crocodiles show up like the Sphinx of the Oberliga Nord. On a bad day, they also get into trouble against the bottom of the table, on a very good one, like on Tuesday evening, they defeat the second in the table with great fighting spirit and team spirit and see the reward on the horizon, eight points away, the fourth-placed Hanover Indians.

The big-city Hanoverians left their mini-crisis with two defeats in a row, won thanks to an outstanding Matthew Pistilli in Krefeld and only need one point for the 100. And thanks to the defeat of Tilburg, they have the Dutch and Halle directly in front of them again. Leipzig appear to have regained their form in time for the play-offs, which is important as pursuers Herne are six points behind but still have three games to go. Change of place for eighth place.

Duisburg didn’t stand a real chance against the defensively strong Saale Bulls and since Hamm, with a bit of luck, defeated Herford, the Eisbären now take this coveted place again. At the bottom of the table everything remained as it should be, but Rostock, a guest in Mellendorf, presented themselves, also thanks to a new game system by Lenny Soccio, much more solid than a few weeks ago, and even managed it in the end, two minutes before the end to annoy the league leaders with the removal of goalkeeper Ennio Albrecht. Spicy detail: Ennio Albrecht, license player for the DEL league in Wolfsburg, was back-up for Scorpions goalkeeper Brett Jaeger three weeks ago.

Crocodiles Hamburg – Tilburg Trappers 5:4 (2:2, 1:0, 2:2)

Only 836 spectators witnessed an exciting game that ended with a happy winner. In the first two thirds, the Dutch dominated the game, but clever Hamburgers scored the goals. In the last third, the Crocodiles took control against a slacking Trapper, maintaining their efficiency and edging through the final rush after the Trappers’ fourth goal in the last minute. Next to goalkeeper Kai Kristian (91.1 percent catch rate), the best players from Hamburg were Rajala, Jentsch and Reed as well as the defenders, who also repeatedly went on the offensive.

Tore: 0:1 (05:22) Raymond van der Schuit (Bulmer), 1:1 (15:11) Juuso Rajala (Kupiainen, Jentsch), 1:2 (15:24) Marvin Timmer (Sars, de Bonth) , 2:2 (17:02) Niklas Jentsch (Reed, Rajala), 3:2 (23:02) Maximilian Schaludek (Spöttel, Hertel), 3:3 (42:03) Brett Bulmer (Virtanen, Hermens 5-4 ), 4:3 (51:29) Harrison Reed, 5:3 (57:59) Thomas Zuravlev (Tramm, Fleischmann ENG), 5:4 (58:59) Reno de Hondt (Hermens, Hofland)

EG Diez-Limburg – Icefighters Leipzig 1:5 (0:4, 1:1, 0:0)

Without any chance, the hosts were against Leipzig. The Saxons dominated the game, ended up with 45:14 shots on goal and can at most blame themselves for not winning even better. Diez, who was under constant pressure for sixty minutes, liked the fighting performance and goalkeeper Tommi Steffen, who had a strong 88.9 percent catch rate despite conceding five goals. At Leipzig, Hannon, Heyter, Piskor and Östling scored twice.

Goals: 0:1 (01:30) Nicolas Sauer (Östling, Heyter), 0:2 (05:05) Victor Östling (Piskor, Heyter 5-4), 0:3 (10:29) Connor Hannon (Riekkinen, Wolter), 0:4 (18:21) Moritz Miguez (Kanya, Piskor), 1:4 (24:06) Fedor Kolupaylo, 1:5 (36:12) Connor Hannon (Farrell, Heyter)

Krefeld EV U23 – Hanover Indians 1: 4 (0: 2, 0: 1, 1: 1)

Even if the Krefelders represented a different opponent than those from the weekend. First of all it was important for the Indians that the defense worked again, and it did that at KEV. The Krefelders were optically equal, determined the encounter in places, but could hardly assert themselves. The Krefeld team liked their fighting spirit and good morale, while the Indians, who showed themselves to be more stable than last time, had Matthew Pistilli by far the strongest striker with three assists. He was followed by the veterans Igor Bacek and Branislav Pohanka, who each scored two points for the team. Indians back-up Sebastian Graf also performed well with a strong catch rate of 96.7 percent.

Tore: 0:1 (00:26) Matthew Pistilli (Bacek, Pohanka), 0:2 (10:04) Dennis Palka (R. Palka, Pistilli), 0:3 (26:16) Igor Bacek (Pistilli, Pohanka ), 1:3 (43:33) Martin Benes (Grygiel, Schitz), 1:4 (57:15) Jayden Schubert (Möller, Christmann)

Foxes Duisburg – Saale Bulls Halle 1: 5 (0: 1, 0: 1, 1: 3)

Even if it’s a 440 kilometer drive. The Bulls seem to like going to Duisburg, where they were victorious for the eighth time in a row. The last foxes win over the Bulls was in November 2017 (4:0), after which the Bulls dominated with 35:11 goals. The foxes didn’t have a chance on this matchday either, but they bit their teeth against the strong Bulls defense and were well served in the end with 23:33 shots on goal. In Duisburg it was nice that the team tried to improve the result until the end, in Halle the first block was brilliant, which came in at +15 in the plus-minus rating.

Tore: 0:1 (06:17) Finn Walkowiak (Varttinen, Weyrauch), 0:2 (30:33) Tatu Vihavainen (Hoffmann, Walkowiak), 0:3 (44:42) Thomas Merl (Hoffmann, Plauschin), 1:3 (53:35) Ondrej Nedved (Lundh Hahnebeck, Schmitz 5-4), 1:4 (57:29) Patrick Schmid (ENG), 1:5 (57:54) Tatu Vihavainen (Weyrauch, Varttinen)

Hammer Eisbären – Herforder EV Ice Dragons 4: 2 (0: 1, 1: 1, 3: 0)

It was hard work for the polar bears, but in the end there was triple cheering. Firstly about the victory itself, secondly a competitor for eighth place was kept at bay and thirdly a Herford winning streak in Hamm ended with four wins and 24:8 goals. However, it didn’t look like it at first. The very first attack, completed by Denoble, ended up in the goalkeeper Sebastian Wieber’s goal after just 12 seconds. Also in the episode, Herford was better, but not accurate. When Garten even made it 2-0 for the Ice Dragons shortly after the first period break, a Herford victory seemed possible, but Hamm came back through Limböck and Otte. A double strike from the two Hammer top scorers Lavallee and Schutz within nine seconds finally brought the decision in favor of the polar bears.

Goals: 0:1 (00:12) Logan Denoble (Patocka, Gerstung), 0:2 (22:04) Marius Garten (Begovs), 1:2 (30:29) Michel Limböck (Dotter, Lichnovsky), 2: 2 (43:07) Maximilian Otte (Trapp, Lichnovsky), 3: 2 (52:58) Chris Schutz (Dotter), 4: 2 (53:07) Kevin Lavallee (Otte)

Hannover Scorpions – Rostock Piranhas 3:0 (1:0, 0:0, 2:0)

The last time the Piranhas in Mellendorf did not score a goal was in January 2014 at 0:7. And yet the 0:3 defeat was a success, because the defensive tactics with quick counterattacks drilled into them by coach Lenny Soccio became almost a recipe for success. In the first third, the top favorite was definitely surprised, let the game concept get out of hand and was happy that Pascal Aquin with his 89th point of the season gave the Scorpions a 1-0 lead a second before the end of the third. In the second third, the fit head coach Kevin Gaudet changed the tactics and now the Hanoverians took the optical lead, but now the Rostock defense was rock solid and its goalkeeper Ennio Albrecht, on loan from Wolfsburg and in the jersey of the Scorpions until January, achieved real results Miracles, kept his team alive. Even when Scorpions newcomer James Bettauer scored the 2-0 in the 53rd minute, the piranhas’ courage was not broken. On the contrary, Lenny Soccio even dared to take his goalkeeper off the ice with 75 seconds remaining. In the end it doesn’t really matter that this courage wasn’t rewarded. The Scorpions scored the expected three points, may have learned something tactically for the upcoming tasks and the Rostockers noticed in the last week that they are in good hands in the Oberliga.

Goals: 1: 0 (19:59) Pascal Aquin (Maschmeyer), 2: 0 (52:45) James Bettauer (Rinke, Reiß), 3: 0 (59:28) Patrick Klöpper (Trattner, Airich ENG)