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Exactly seven days after the 4:6 away defeat in Budweis, the two teams met again – in the LinzAG-Eisarena. The game started with a back and forth and smaller chances for both sides. From minute twelve with slight tendencies in favor of Linz, who were allowed to play power play. In the 16th minute the disc wriggled in the mesh for the first time. Unusually in the goal of the Steinbach Black Wings. In the previous four friendlies, Linz had always scored the first goal. Kristofers Bindulis was the goalscorer for the visitors from South Bohemia.
Linz had problems with the high speed and the intensity of the Czechs, time and again they had to help each other against the rules. But the guests were repeatedly asked to go to the penalty box. In minute 28 – in Budejovice’s power play – Jakub Valsky was able to make it 2-0. And this was also performance-based, because Budweis played out playful advantages in the middle section and could often only be stopped by the strong Rasmus Tirronen in the Linz box.
Even in the final third, the bars in the penalty box hardly cooled down. When Victor Bartley was sitting in the cool box, Andreas Kristler followed up decisively after a liberation action and served the disc in front of the goal to Shawn St-Amant, who didn’t need to be asked twice and was able to beat Budweis goalie Dominik Hrachovina to make it 1:2. Linz kept fighting, but was finally thrown out of rhythm eight minutes before the end: Zdenek Dolezal scored to make it 3-1 from the visitors’ point of view, Vojtech Tomecek scored three minutes before the end to make it 4-1 into the orphaned goal.
“We couldn’t match the intensity and willingness of Budweis. And that’s a disappointment. Because it’s the basic requirement to be competitive. We were always half a step too late. And this difference was noticeable in every running duel and every duel . We can learn a lot from this evening,” said coach Philipp Lukas.
The game report from the first meeting with Budweis:
In the current episode of the icebreaker podcast you can hear physiotherapist Thomas Hebenstreit. He tells how he gets the team fit, why there is no ice in his dressing room, how he was involved in Mirna Jukic’s Olympic bronze medal and why one day he received a voice message from IOC President Thomas Bach had on his cell phone:
Source: Nachrichten
