Strong finish helped Eisbären top Panthers

The Eisbären Berlin showed a lot of character winning against the ERC Ingolstadt 3-2 in overtime. “We pulled the momentum to our side during the game” scorer of the equalizer Marcel Noebels stated. “It was a strong effort of the whole team. Our goalie Petri Vehanen saved tremendously as always. We played it easy at the end. Being patience was very important for us tonight”.

The guest´s opened the scoring early in the first period. Martin Davidek needed only 113 seconds to find twine. He pushed Christoph Gawlik´s quick set up from the back boards besides Berlin´s netminder Petri Vehanen (01:53). The Bavarian´s continued to pressure and increased the lead to 2 at the end of the period. With André Rankel serving a minor penalty for charging Patrick Hager used the man advantage to knock it into the net. He deflected Brandon Buck´s cross pass at the low slot area just over Vehanen´s glove into the right angle (18:17).

For long time it seemed like the second period would remain scoreless. Fortunately T.J. Mulock was able to cut the 2-goal lead in half with 29 seconds left on the clock. His first shot from the low slot area hit the left post but he was able to pick up his own rebound and to lift it over Timo Pielmeier´s right pad (19:31).
The home team had to play catch-up hockey during the third. Unfortunately Panther´s netminder Timo Pielmeier denied every single one off Eisbären´s shooting attempts. Head Coach Uwe Krupp had to react and pushed his goalie at 18:20. Then – only three seconds later – Marcel Noebels overwhelmed Pielmeier with a quick snap shot from the centre slot area leaving 97 seconds left in regulation (18:23). For the guest´s it came even worse. With 5 seconds left in overtime Berlin´s Finn Antti Miettinen smashed it into the net winning the extra point for his team.

“We played well in the first capitalizing on our chances and they didn´t – that was the difference” Panther´s Derek Hahn resumed. “Mulock´s goal was a big og for them. Instead of 2-nothing it was 2-1 all of the sudden. During the last few games we are getting goals late in the third. We have to fix that going forward”.

Ken Frege