The Fischtown Pinguins Bremerhaven ended the great career of old star Patrick Reimer in the German Ice Hockey League (DEL).
On the second day of the pre-playoffs, the North Germans won against the Nürnberg Ice Tigers for the DEL record scorer 4:2 (2:0, 0:2, 2:0) and won the series 2:0. Bremerhaven won the first duel 3-1 at home, in the quarter-finals it is against the main round winner Red Bull Munich.
“So far there has only been ice hockey in my life. Now I’m happy that it’s changing a bit,” said Reimer (40) at “MagentaSport”, but he will certainly miss the sport soon. “It’s amazing,” said Reimer to the chants of the audience, “a nice award. I’m just grateful.”
The Düsseldorfer EG also eliminated promoted Löwen Frankfurt as quickly as possible and booked their quarter-final ticket. After the 5-0 win at home, the eight-time champions won the best-of-three series with a 5-1 (2-0, 1-1, 2-0) win over the Hessians 2-0.
DEG will meet ERC Ingolstadt, second in the main round, on Wednesday, and the “best of seven” format will apply from the quarter-finals. As seventh in the table, Düsseldorf just missed out on qualifying directly for the round of the top eight.
Barta: “We didn’t allow much”
The 2-0 lead of the Penguins through an early double strike by Miha Verlic (6th) and Markus Vikingstad (6th) was equalized by Nuremberg thanks to Tim Fleischer (29th) and Jakob Ustorf (31st). The Franconians then had no answer to the goal of Alexander Friesen (50th). Jan Urbas (59th) increased just before the final siren.
Victor Svensson (12th) and Alec McCrea (16th) scored in Frankfurt in the first third for the guests, Alexander Barta (22nd) followed up. Shortly before the second break, Dylan Wruck scored the first goal for the lions in the series (40′), but Alexander Blank restored the old gap (44′) before DEG captain Barta removed the last doubts (50′).
“We didn’t allow much, we played very disciplined. Everyone threw themselves in for each other,” said Barta on “MagentaSport”: “We have big plans and we implemented them.”