After the Steel Wings got off to a cold start in Cortina last week, they showed themselves from their best side against the leaders in Jesenice: Kilian Rappold scored the goal in the third minute to put them 1-0 ahead. But the Slovenians came back. David Planko scored in the 10th minute to make it 1-1. Erik Pance – brother of Olimpija-Ljubljana striker Ziga Pance, who was a guest at the Linz-AG-Eisarena on Friday – scored 29 seconds before the half-time siren to make it 2-1 for the Slovenian home side.
In the second period, Jesenice increased the lead to 3:1 (26./pp) through Zan Jezovsek. Sebastian Wilding was able to shorten the lead to 2:3 from the Upper Austrians’ point of view in the middle section (39./pp). It stayed that way until the final phase, in which the Linz goalie took Leon Sommer off the ice in order to equalize. But Luka Ulamec scored into the orphaned goal 14 seconds before the end to make it 4:2.
This leaves Linz at the bottom of the table, but only one point behind Klagenfurt. However, the Carinthians already have four games more in their legs.
“I think we started the first period really well and scored our first goal in that period. After that we got lost in the details. Coming back from a deficit in this arena is very difficult, but we fought until the end and also had the chance to equalize, which unfortunately we didn’t do. I’m really happy with the performance shown. I would also like to thank the Stahlhart fan club for their great support in the hall,” said coach Matej Hocevar after the game.
Source: Nachrichten
