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After the important away win on New Year’s Day, the Steinbach Black Wings face their next big challenge tomorrow evening. With new strength and great support from the steel city, the Linzers are challenging away to champion Salzburg.
The Steinbach Black Wings celebrated a successful start to their 2024 year and won an important away win in Villach on New Year’s Day. After three defeats in a row, the Stahlstadters were able to gain important breathing room in the direct duel for the top 6. With new self-confidence, Brian Lebler and Co. will continue the Christmas marathon tomorrow evening. In the second of the three away games in a row, Linz goes to the all-time favorite in Salzburg. For the third time this season, the Upper Austrians will meet the champions. As against VSV, the team faces the big challenge of making a direct comparison for the first time against the Eisbullen. The first two meetings this season couldn’t have been closer. Both in the 3:4 in the Linz AG Eisarena in mid-October and in the 1:2 in Mozartstadt at the beginning of November, the Linz team captured at least one point in extra time.
The Red Bulls have also often shown two sides in recent weeks, but have recently been able to pick up speed again with three wins en suite. Head coach Oliver David’s team returned to the top 3 after a surprising low at Christmas with a defeat against Vienna and a 1:7 defeat against HC Pustertal. Thomas Raffl and Co. have been hard to beat so far, especially in the Salzburg Volksgarten. With Vienna, Innsbruck and HC Pustertal, only three teams were able to claim complete success with the champions. This means that Salzburg is the second strongest home team behind the KAC in the win2day ICE Hockey League.
Locker Room Update
The fans of the Steinbach Black Wings therefore once again see their mission as calling for the home game in Salzburg. This time, too, two packed fan buses were organized by the fan clubs Overtime, Bully:Absolut and Powerplay Enns. In addition, numerous battle hunters from the steel city will once again make their way and fill the B stand properly. With this support behind them and new strength, the Upper Austrians want to confirm their answer to their brief dip in form. In Villach, the Linzers mostly found their way back to their compact game and showed their fighting spirit to be able to overcome setbacks. Thomas Höneckl was also able to gain new confidence with a strong performance and saved 39 shots. Only too much indiscipline again caused a deserved lead to briefly disappear again. Against the offensively strong Red Bulls and in a traditional big game, it is important to keep emotions under control as much as possible. There will probably be no changes to personnel. Rasmus Tirronen, who had old problems in his lower body, is still undergoing an MRI today. Only then can goalkeeper coach Jürgen Penker think about playing.
The next home game in the Linz AG Eisarena will be on Friday, January 12th against Asiago. Tickets for this and all other home games in the regular season are available online at ticktes.blackwings.at.
Head Coach Philipp Lukas:
“The penalties are still far too much. We have to find a way to solve these situations better so that we don’t take these penalties, but at the same time we don’t lose our energy. In both games against Salzburg they dominated the game and put us under pressure. It will be another very difficult task tomorrow as we have to learn to deal with this pressure. The forecheck is an important element, we have to find the right balance.”
EC Red Bull Salzburg – Steinbach Black Wings Linz
Basic round, round 36: January 3, 2024, 7:15 p.m., Salzburger Volksgarten
www.blackwings.at, Image: BWL / Eisenbauer
2024-01-02 14:56:52
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