Relegation battles demand fairly precisely defined virtues across all sports. Fight, passion, will, skills like these are primarily required when it comes to staying in the class. The Augsburg Panthers are in a relegation battle, and “not just since yesterday,” as their coach Larry Mitchell emphasized on Sunday. The clear words from Panther defender Max Renner last weekend were all the more disturbing. After the 4-1 derby defeat at ERC Ingolstadt on Friday, Renner answered the question about what was missing immediately after the game at Magentasport: “Everything. Fight, passion, will.” Presenting yourself like that is an “absolute no-go”. Discussions within the team are about finding out “why we are doing such a bad job,” complained the experienced defender.
On Sunday, in the home game against the Frankfurt Lions, the fight, passion and will of the Augsburgers were top notch – and in the end the result was right: they won 2-1 after a penalty shootout and secured two important points. After the limits were clearly shown to them in the 2:6 against the Fischtown Pinguins and then in Ingolstadt within 48 hours, their week in the German Ice Hockey League (DEL) came to a conciliatory end.
Renner’s very clear words were probably also based on the numerous setbacks that Augsburg had to cope with recently. Although they had taken two wins and five out of a possible six points the previous weekend, they were by far the weakest team in the league in the ten games before Sunday’s games: they only got an average of 0.6 points, an average that is in the The fight to stay in the class doesn’t bode well.
Against Frankfurt, the Panthers didn’t show the face of a relegated team for one and a half thirds
The topic of relegation battle is not new for Augsburg, they are stuck in it for the third DEL year in a row – and are currently in a three-way battle. Before Sunday’s games, they were second to last in the table with 31 points, three points behind the Iserlohn Roosters and two ahead of Düsseldorfer EG, who, however, have played two fewer games. The two points against Frankfurt were very good, but despite being 0-2 behind, the Düsseldorf team still won 3-2 after extra time against the German champions, the Eisbären Berlin, and thus also secured two points. In the past two seasons, the nerve-wracking constellation worked out well for the Augsburg team, even though they had twice finished the DEL main round as relegated teams. How does that work? In both cases, the DEL2 champions (the Ravensburg Towerstars and Eisbären Regensburg) did not meet the economic requirements for promotion.
Against Frankfurt, Augsburg didn’t show the face of a relegated team for one and a half thirds. They created scoring opportunity after scoring opportunity and also scored in the person of Florian Elias (10th). But the referees took the goal back because, in their opinion, Frankfurt goalkeeper Juho Olkinuora had his hand on the target when Elias pushed it into the goal. A controversial decision. Two targets that hit the outside post and a total of 19 shots on goal underlined Augsburg’s dominance in the starting third, Mitchell spoke of the “best starting third of the season”. What was missing, however, was the goal. The Augsburg team also gave Renner’s response to the performance in Ingolstadt in the middle third, but they continued to miss top chances, such as Nick Baptiste in the 25th minute or Mark Zengerle in a solo effort. “We need to do more offensively from our top players,” Mitchell demanded before the game. This was true when it came to creating scoring chances, but not when it came to exploiting them.
And so it happened, as often happens in such situations: Daniel Wirt scored the goal from Frankfurt (31st) – and the game tipped in favor of the guests. Unfortunately, we saw “how fragile the Augsburg Panthers are” when they conceded a goal, Mitchell explained at the press conference, because that meant his team fell into a “very deep hole”. The coach classified it as a “mental thing”. He was all the more pleased that Anrei Hakulinen managed to make it 1-1 shortly before the end of the game (58th) and that a goal from Baptiste was enough in the penalty shootout because Strauss Mann in the AEV goal defused all three Frankfurt attempts.
At least as much as he was happy about the two points he won, Mitchell was also pleased that his team managed to “fight for 60 minutes and play with passion and pride”. Because that should be the basis in the coming relegation battle weeks, as Max Renner also knows.
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