The Steinbach Black Wings are on their farewell tour this ice hockey season. The play-off train has long left, four matches in the regular season are still on the program. On Friday (7.15 p.m., OÖN live ticker on nachrichten.at) Linz will be a guest at leaders Red Bull Salzburg, who already have their quarter-final ticket in their pockets.
The next home game would have been on the agenda for Saturday (5:30 p.m.), but nothing will come of it. Opponent Dornbirn Bulldogs declared themselves “not ready to play”. That means: There are (once again) suspected cases of corona in the Vorarlberg team, who are threatened with a 0:5 penalty verification at the green table. The league’s COVID special committee will first decide how to proceed.
The Black Wings want to finish the championship properly with the coaches Mark Szücs and Jürgen Penker, who will be the assistants to new head coach Philipp Lukas in the coming season. Three to four games are still on the schedule: Salzburg away, Fehervar on February 25 (7.15 p.m.) at home, Innsbruck on February 27 (5.30 p.m.) abroad and maybe the latecomer duel with Dornbirn.
Austrian core for the next season
“The starting position is clear and the statistics speak for themselves more than clearly,” said Szücs before the showdown with Liga-Krösus Salzburg, against whom not only defender Chris Rumble and striker Julian Pusnik will be injured. Goalie Thomas Höneckl is also not on board, he will only return next season. He finished the current one at the German second division club Kaufbeuren.
“For us, the game is another nice challenge. We will definitely put up a tough fight against Salzburg and get everything we can out of ourselves,” promised Szücs, who could take a Steel Wings goalkeeper to Salzburg with him. Leon Sommer, current U20 national goalkeeper, would be an option.
A tribe of Austrians is already under contract with the Black Wings for 2022/23: Gerd Kragl, Ramon Schnetzer, Raphael Wolf, Emilio Romig, Niklas Bretschneider, Alexander Lahoda and Marco Brucker remain in Linz, with Pusnik the signs are up despite a broken kneecap Renewal. With striker and “homegrown” Stefan Gaffal, the people of Linz should agree on the continuation of the cooperation.
Short guest performance by Lebler in Salzburg?
Captain Brian Lebler has a contract in Linz until 2024, but a temporary change of location cannot be completely ruled out, even if Wings President Peter Nader says “that there are no plans to sell any more players for the rest of the season”. In any case, the list of interested parties from Germany and abroad is long. Deadline for transfers within the league is next Tuesday (February 22nd).
According to reports, the Vienna Capitals, KAC and Red Bull Salzburg are interested in the 33-year-old team striker, who has 25 goals this season. Salzburg are forced to act after Mario Huber broke his forearm in Wednesday’s game in Bozen (3-0 win). Lebler should be pretty high on the list of the “Eisbullen” fighting for the title.
International match against the Czech Republic in Linz
Either way, the season for Lebler should go into overtime. The goalgetter wants to fight for promotion to the highest category with Austria’s national team at the Division IA World Cup in Ljubljana (May 2nd to 8th). Incidentally, the first preparatory course for head coach Roger Bader’s team will take place from April 2nd to 8th in the Linz AG Eisarena. There will also be a friendly country match against the Czech Republic on April 8 (7 p.m.).
Source: Nachrichten
