DEL: Sharks: Successful home debut for Draisaitl

The Cologne sharks celebrated a clear victory at the home premiere of their new coach Peter Draisaitl in the DEL. After three away games under the former international, the eight-time champions Cologne won 5-1 against Straubing Tigers.

Draisaitl took over the post at the beginning of last week, succeeding dismissed Canadian Cory Clouston. Of a possible twelve points since the start of the former shark professional’s tenure, Cologne clinched six points and improved to eighth place in the standings with 36 points.

Vice-Champion Grizzly’s Wolfsburg was defeated after five consecutive victories in the 1-2 draw with ERC Ingolstadt, but still finished fourth in the standings with 46 points. The Adler Mannheim won 3:2 after a penalty shoot-out against the Augsburg Panther and are still seventh.

Cologne turned the game after an early backlog by scoring two goals within 33 seconds. Kai Hospelt and Nickolas Latta met in the 15. minute. Shortly afterwards Felix Schütz increased to 3-1, Ryan Jones and Philipp Gogulla scored the remaining goals.