Without the NHL cracks around standard-bearer Leon Draisaitl, the German national ice hockey team barely beat hosts Italy at the Olympic dress rehearsal in Bolzano.
National coach Harold Kreis’ selection won the only test for the Winter Games 4:3 (2:0, 1:2, 1:1) after a good start. On Thursday, the entourage of the German Ice Hockey Federation (DEB) will travel to Milan, and the majority of the players from North America are scheduled to arrive in the Olympic Village on Saturday.
“We can be happy with the first third. After that we had to accept too many turnovers. We have to keep our game simpler for the upcoming tasks,” said goal scorer Kai Wissmann.
“In the end, the win is fine for us,” said Kreis, “we will definitely look at a few more decisions from the game.” After the promising start to the game, his team “looked for rather complicated solutions”.
NHL stars travel to
In addition to superstar Draisaitl (Edmonton Oilers), who flies earlier and will be the first German ice hockey player to carry the flag at an Olympic opening ceremony on Friday evening, Philipp Grubauer (Seattle Kraken), Moritz Seider (Detroit Red Wings), Tim Stützle (Ottawa Senators), John-Jason Peterka (Utah Mammoth), Nico Sturm (Minnesota Wild) and Draisaitl’s teammate Joshua Samanski were also not available against the Italians available.
Video: German flag duo reacts emotionally
Tobias Rieder scored in the majority to take the lead (12th) for the DEB team, which was filled with numerous players from the German Ice Hockey League (DEL). Wissmann, who recently made his comeback for the Eisbären Berlin after tearing his Achilles tendon just 25 days before the start of the Olympics, increased (13th).
Fabio Wagner made it 3-0 (25th) for the 2018 Olympic silver medalist, a little later Dustin Gazley overcame Maximilian Franzreb in the German goal and shortened the score (30th). Shorthanded, the DEB team conceded the next goal shortly before the second break from Tommy Purdeller (40th), and in the middle of the final third Yasin Ehliz made it 4:2 in the power play (49th). It was only shortly before the final siren that Alessandro Segafredo made the final score (60′).
The German team has been preparing for the tournament since last Saturday in the Olympic camp in Bolzano. The German team will face Denmark at the start in Milan on February 12th (9:10 p.m.), other opponents in Group C are Latvia (February 14th, 12:10 p.m.) and the USA (February 15th, 9:10 p.m.). The three group winners and the best runner-up qualify directly for the quarter-finals. The remaining teams play in a qualifying round for the four open spots.
