EHC in Salzburg 0:4

Linzers not cool and good enough in hot start!

Goalie Tirronen and the Black Wings lost to Salzburg 0:4(Bild: GEPA pictures/ Mathias Mandl)

False start for the Black Wings in the play-offs! Eishockey-Linz was superior at the beginning at champion Salzburg. But then the EHC lost striker St-Amant due to indiscipline, conceded 0:1 in overtime - and in the end not only lost 0:4, but also defenseman Würschl.

Welcome to the play-offs! From the very first minute, the Red Bulls and the Black Wings kicked off the quarter-final series in Salzburg's Volksgarten with a bang. Which went very badly for Ice Hockey Linz! "We deviated from the game plan. It's a physical and mental battle - we weren't good enough," said captain Brian Lebler shortly after the Puls24 live game. It was an extremely emotional and tense game in which there were niggles and scuffles every few minutes. But for one player there was a 'Not enough, sit down' in terms of coach Philipp Lukas' instructions to keep the emotions under control - and not just on the penalty bench, but on the bench in the dressing room!

St-Amant (r.) weakened the Black Wings(Bild: Kronen Zeitung)

Stupid stick stick
Shawn St-Amant got carried away with a stupid stick stick, the second-best Linz scorer (17 goals, 33 assists) received a 5+game disciplinary penalty. He considerably weakened his team, which had made a great start to the away game in front of over 600 fans and was the better team in the first period, in minute 18. Linz survived the 5-minute short-handed spell - partly because the referees whistled for a regular goal.

Defenders also lost
However, the EHC fell behind through Schneider in their own overtime (!) (25.)! The underdogs then literally had no chances in front against the compact defending champions, getting far too few shots to and players in front of the Salzburg goal. And they left Bull captain Raffl alone at the back, who struck with an onetimer - 2:0 (35'). "It was the expected tough game, but the penalty helped us," said Raffl.

Lukas: "Exclusion changed a lot"
His Bulls only needed a bit of luck in the final period with Wolf's shot off the stick (42'), but won in the end with aplomb. Rymsha added twice in overtime to make the final score 4:0 (48., 49.). Also bitter: The Linzers lost defenseman Würschl, who was led off the ice injured, in addition to St-Amant, who is facing a suspension. "I wasn't dissatisfied with our game, I especially liked the first period. As the game went on, we took ourselves out of the game through indiscipline, the exclusion changed a lot for us," said coach Lukas after the sobering false start to the best-of-7 series, after which the Black Wings will have home ice for the first time in the quarter-finals on Tuesday.