Before it started, there was a good portion of warm words. “Donnie Jackson,” said Dallas Ekins, is a “man I really love”, an “incredible human being”. The special thing about these statements: Eakins is a coach of the Adler Mannheim, who have to deal with Don Jackson’s EHC Red Bull Munich in the playoff quarter-finals of the German Ice Hockey League (DEL). Love was limited to the verbal part on Sunday afternoon. In the first game of the best-of-Seven series, it was on the ice as it was expected: intense, narrow and always rough. In the middle third alone, a total of seven players took a seat on the penalty bench.
Eakins also said right before the quarterfinal series started: “If you are looking for two teams in this league that are so similar that they are almost the same, these are we and Munich.” So he calculated with a long series – and with extensions. The first one was in game one. Mannheim’s Tom Kühnhackl ended her after a little more than 67 minutes of play with the 2-1 and made sure that the Munich players lost their eleventh game in a row in Mannheim. Game two of the series will take place in Munich on Wednesday.
Before the duel between two “heavyweights”, as EHC manager Christian Winkler called it, players and coaches had pointed out on both sides that it would be a pretty physical series. Maximilian Kastner expressed this: the series will go “through physical activity”. This was already seen at the Munich line -up, which recently committed, 90 kilograms of weighing Riedell wants to be in defense and not with Les Lancaster, who stands for playful moments.
The Munich appearance in the middle third is not that of an outsider
After a balanced start, the Mannheimers increased the playful intensity for the first time in the sixth minute and only rewarded themselves 1-0 a minute later, as defender Nick Cicek, joke an eagle switch. The Munich response was a dangerous outpouring counterattack by Tobias Rieder (12th) and a considerable first overpayment game. “We quickly switch around with the disc,” said Cicek after the start of the start at Magentasport and indicated that part of the tactical approach was to hurt Munich over counterattacks.
Even before the start of the playoff, the Munich team had repeated mantra-like that the goal was to win the championship-despite a turbulent main round with some lows and three different trainers. Jackson’s statement on Sunday, his team comes “a bit than the underdog here”, fell into the verbal tactical banter category. The Munich appearance in the middle third was not that of an outsider. The 1-1 by Markus Eisenschmid in the majority (25th) fell consequently and also fit in terms of scoring, because the attacker, who had worn the Adler jersey for five years before moving to Munich, had already been striking. “We got better into our forecheck and were much safer at the back,” said EHC striker Andreas Eder, who had prepared Eisenschmid’s goal, after the second third.
The lack of Munich’s top goal shooters and top scorer Chris Desousa, who is still closed after an unauthorized check against Mannheim’s Luke Esposito at the end of the main round and can only be used again in game three, was not noticeable in this phase, the Jackson team was more dominant, determined and dangerous. Mannheim’s Kühnhackl managed the game decisive action. The two experienced trainers Jackson and Ekins will not shock the first result, they know that it was only part of one of something potentially long. Ekins put it on Sunday before the first disc fell, as: “If you win one game one, you have to win game two. If you lose game one, you have to win game two. “
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