Goalkeeper Patrick Klein’s knee injury is not as bad as initially feared.
Photo: Lammertz, Thomas (lamm)
The U23 of the KEV 81 is currently in the Ice Hockey Oberliga table second bottom. The selection of head coach Elmar Schmitz has scored 16 points in 31 games. Even if a look at the table does not give cause for joy, those responsible are nevertheless satisfied with the overall development under the difficult circumstances. “This placement is in line with our expectations. If you take into account that we lost a lot of important players and that we could only start the season with a small squad, then we are on target, ”said KEV sports chairman Elmar Schmitz.
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The list of failures is still very long. Defender Julius Bauermeister has been absent for four weeks and won’t play again until February. Captain Adrian Grygiel is still missing until March. In addition to the sick Edwin Schitz, Luca Hauf, who turned 18 on Tuesday, is now out with an upper body injury. There is hope that Matthias Onckels, Valentin Pfeifer and Tim Dreschamann will be operational over the weekend. There was a moment of shock in the game on Sunday against Halle when an attacker from the guests collided with goalkeeper Patrick Klein. Despite severe pain in his knee, he held out until the end of the game. The 32-year-old was examined on Monday. Maybe he can play again on the weekend after a three-day break in training.
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Coach Schmitz used the failures to test players from their own offspring. “The guys did really well. Niclas Focks from the U17 is almost an integral part of the top division team. Daniel Herzog from the U20 has also developed very positively as a defender. He has a lot of potential, ”says Schmitz, who doesn’t necessarily have to look at the table, but rather focuses on the development of the players. “The boys have already learned a lot, which you can see in the close results against top teams and the victory in Tilburg”.
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The good work of the junior coaches has already paid off for defender Markus Freis, who received a funding contract with cooperation partner Löwen Frankfurt and regularly plays in the DEL 2. The defenders Leon Schuster and Michael Schaaf as well as attacker Florian Maierhofer participated in the training of the penguins as long as the corona rules of the DEL allowed.
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