This is the Black Wings pre-playoff opponent

This act of liberation was as important as a morsel of bread. After six ice hockey defeats in a row, the Steinbach Black Wings Linz found their way back to winning ways in the best-of-3 mode in time for the pre-play-offs beginning on Tuesday (7.15 p.m., live ticker on nachrichten.at) and took seventh place with a 4:2 (1:1, 3:1, 0:0) success over Fehervar in front of 2673 eyewitnesses in the Linz AG Eisarena.

This put the people of Linz in the position of opposing voting rights. They opted for the Graz 99ers, who will be making a guest appearance at the start of the series at the Untere Donaulände. Game two will be away on Friday, a possible decisive match would take place again in Linz on Sunday.

The Styrians beat Vorarlberg 4-0 and secured the last round of 16 ticket in a long-distance duel with Pustertal.

Asiago would also have been an option, against the Italian league newcomers the EHC has a much better season record with 3:1 wins than against Graz, who won three of four matches with the Black Wings – including both in Linz.

One of the decisive factors in the choice made by the coaching staff around Philipp Lukas in coordination with the team was the lower travel stress.

“The team showed character and a lot of positive things. We can build on that, we will now prepare well for this short series,” said Lukas, whose team fell 1-0 down again. But then Marco Brucker (20th), Andreas Kristler (23rd, 27th) and Graham Knott (26th) made the fans cheer.

The Steel Wings said goodbye with their third win in a row (5:4 with three goals from Kilian Rappold in Vipiteno) as 13th overall. under 15 teams from the Alps Hockey League season.