Black Wings on the way to Bolzano: Who is missing, who is there?

The Black WIngs climbed into the 505 hp bus from “Lehner Reisen” with the necessary determination to tackle the away win mission. With the score at 2:2, the best-of-7 ice hockey series is moving to Bozen, where tomorrow (7.45 p.m., live ticker on nachrichten.at) game five will be on the program.

The positive first: Linz will not provide a core team, because after the final training session in the morning it was clear that defender Daine Todd and top scorer Michael Haga (51 points) could make the trip to South Tyrol.

Todd has the green light and is considered a safe bet in the Palaonda, where the Black Wings celebrated a 2-1 win last Sunday. Haga, who trained with the team for the first time today after suffering an upper-body injury in game 2 (2-1 for Linz) last Friday, was only decided at short notice. “We still have to wait, but we hope that it will work,” said Linz coach Philipp Lukas.

It is bitter that the Black Wings have to specify two absolute key figures in the second (very active) storm line. Emilio Romig was handed a three-game ban after hitting a stick in Tuesday’s 5-1 home defeat, while Shawn St-Amant was hopeful until the end, but a lower body injury sent the lights on red.

EHC have scored five goals in their four previous knockout ties with Bozen, four of which came from Romig (3) and St-Amant (1).

That means: Tomorrow others have to step into the breach and create danger in front of the opposing box. Otherwise it will be difficult. What is fixed is that the people of Linz have at least one more home game. Namely on Sunday (5.30 p.m.).

Should the hurdle in Bozen be jumped, defending champion Red Bull Salzburg would be waiting in the semifinals. The Mozart city-dwellers won their series against Szekesfehervar 4-0.