German ice hockey league: Cologne for the first time since 2014 in the final – duel against Berlin

The Cologne Haie used their second match ball and, after eleven years, are again in the final for the German Ice Hockey Championship. In the tenth minute of overtime, Justin Schütz ensured the winning goal for 3-2 against ERC Ingolstadt, after it was 2: 2 (2: 1, 0: 0, 0: 0) in the sixth semi -finals.

The Rhinelander won the best-of-Seven series 4-2. The Eisbären Berlin are now waiting in the final. In the other semi-final series, the master had clearly prevailed 4-0 against the Adler Mannheim. For the disappointed main round winner, the vacation is now on vacation.

“A lot of pressure has fallen off, I put the whole playoff’s enormous pressure myself and I’m glad that it worked,” said Schütz at Magenta Sport. “I knew that if I had a chance, I used her.”

In front of 18,600 spectators in the sold-out Cologne Lanxess Arena, Austen Keating put the guests in the lead in the 7th minute with his sixth playoff goal. Just three minutes later, Wayne Simpson increased to 2-0.

But national players and captain Moritz Müller (15th) reduced in his 141st playoff game with a great individual performance. Still worth seeing the balance by Gregor Macleod (46th), whose fourth playoff goal again provided an absolutely open game before Schütz turned the arena into a rabid.

“Berlin is one of the top teams in the league, for years. They know how to do it. We come as an outsider and don’t want to hide in the final,” said Cologne’s legend Müller. The first final game will take place in Berlin on Thursday.

The guests started highly concentrated and powerful, were effectively in front of the goal of the sharks. After the goal, the Cologne team increased the pace in the middle section, came to more degrees than in the first 20 minutes. At first, goals did not.

This changed in the final third when Macleod provided a sensational individual performance for the draw. Even after that, the Cologne matters had opportunities, but repeatedly failed due to the Finnish national goalie Christian Heljanko.

Shortly before the end, Cologne’s goalkeeper Julius Hudacek thwarted a great chance of the guests through Morgan Ellis and so it went into overtime. The Ingolstadt residents had the first majority after six instead of five Cologne players were on the ice. Cologne still had two big chances, the guests looked unsettled. Then it went back and forth with the better end for Cologne.