Despite an early shock, the German national team has reached the quarter-finals of the Olympic Games for the first time in 16 years. The team of national coach Marco Sturm won in the playoff in Pyeongchang against arch-rivals Switzerland after a hard fight and extra time with 2:1 (1:0,0:1,0:0,1:0,1:0) despite the fact that leading player Christian Ehrhoff was foully fouled after only a few seconds.
In the round of the last eight, the selection of the DEB on Wednesday (21.10 a. m. OZ/13.10 CET) will meet the World Champion Sweden.
Nuremberg’s Leonhard Pföderl (2nd) scored the early 1-0, Yannic Seidenberg scored the early 1-0, while Germany took another lap in the Kwandong Hockey Centre after an overtime of only 26 seconds. For the Swiss, who last won against a German team 66 years ago at the Olympics, Simon Moser (24.).
Sturm’s successful series continued. Since taking office in 2015, the German team has regained its place among the top eight in the world of ice hockey: twice in the quarter-finals at the World Championships, now also at the Olympics.
After just nine seconds, experienced Ehrhoff had to leave the ice – after a brutal foul by the Swiss Cody Almond, who slammed his elbow in the face of the man from Cologne at full speed. The following majority used Pföderl for the lead goal, with the active support of former NHL keeper Jonas Hiller, who let the puck slip through the schooners.
Pföderl replaced his Nuremberg club colleague Patrick Reimer. The DEL-record scorer was injured just as much as the Mannheim defender Sinan Akdag, who also received a check against the head after a 2:1 penalty shootout against Norway. Ehrhoff returned to the ice at the beginning of the second period.
In the goal was again Danny from the birch trees. The Munich championship goalie, still a factor of uncertainty at last year’s home World Cup, had convinced against Norway.
The 33-year-old won the match with two defended penalties. This time he was lucky after only five minutes, when the disc was scratched off the line after his failure (5.).
The Swiss increased the pressure – also because the German team faced them with stupid penalty times. But the strong undercount play prevented dicey situations.
In 16. In the second minute, attacker Gerrit Fauser also had to enter the cabin early – bleeding because he was hit in the face by the puck. The Wolfsburg man also returned to the second section – with a stitched lip.
The DEB team lost more and more of its line, the compensation was the logical consequence. Birchwood was far from being as calm and sovereign as it was against Norway. Again and again the puck bounced forward uncontrollably.