Eisbären Berlin – Kölner Haie (Sunday, 2 p.m.)
The polar bears finished the main round with a point quotient of 2.036 in first place and thus qualified directly for the quarter-finals. “Of course we have an incredibly strong and talented team. We played very consistently in the main round and my team has shown incredible morale over the past few months.”, says Berlin’s head coach Serge Aubin. The coach of the top title favorite finds: “But the main part of the work still lies ahead of us with the playoffs. For the polar bears there is only one goal every year and that is to win the championship.”.
Against the Kölner Haie, who are in the pre-playoffs prevailed against Ingolstadt, the Berliners are the clear favorites. In the previous four season duels against the polar bears, there were only defeats for the sharks. Berlin won 5:3 and 3:1 at home and 2:1 and 7:1 in Cologne. Makes 17:6 goals. There is a reunion for the Berliners with Cologne coach Uwe Krupp. He coached the polar bears very successfully from 2014 to 2018.
Grizzlies Wolfsburg – Fischtown Pinguins Bremerhaven (Sunday, 4.30 p.m.)
As in the previous season, the Grizzlies meet the Fischtown Pinguins Bremerhaven in the quarterfinals of the playoffs. In the course of the season, the Pinguins won three out of four duels with Wolfsburg. The first northern derby took place in Bremerhaven on October 10th and went to the home side 4:3. On December 12th in Wolfsburg it was all about points. The guest took the lead early and extended it to 4:0 in the middle section.
At the beginning of the year (January 16), the Wolfsburg team got back into action in Bremerhaven after a break due to the corona virus. Despite a few failures, the team pulled from Mike Stewart in the middle section after a goalless first period to 3:0. In the end, the runner-up scored 5:2. The last duel so far is from last Sunday. Again it was 0:0 after the first 20 minutes, in the second period the Penguins scored three goals and led 3:1. after one Empty net goal cheered the team from head coach Thomas Popiesch a 4-1 win.
Straubing Tigers – Adler Mannheim (Sunday, 3 p.m.)
Things have been quite turbulent in Mannheim over the past few weeks: After the Adler lost three straight defeats against Iserlohn Roosters and twice against the Fischtown Pinguins Bremerhaven, the club separated from the coaching team consisting of head coach Pavel Gross and assistant coach Mike Pellegrims. Since then directs Bill Stewart the team by the end of the season.
In previous meetings of Straubing Tigers with the eagles from Mannheim, the teams clinched two victories each: Lower Bavaria won both duels at the powder tower, Mannheim were able to prevail twice at home, but only once in a penalty shootout. The two teams met in the quarter-finals last year: in the then Best of three Series won the Straubinger the first game in Mannheim. Lower Bavaria narrowly lost game two and three.
EHC Red Bull Munich – Düsseldorfer EG (Sunday, 7 p.m.)
Without a coach Harold Circle (Family affair) Düsseldorf had to play the first two games of the pre-playoff round against Nuremberg. Kreis’ assistant Thomas Dolak looked after Düsseldorf in the two games against Nuremberg (3:2 and 5:6 after extra time). Now Kreis is back at the gang and, after a turbulent week, is looking forward to at least a few hours of rest before it continues on Sunday at EHC Red Bull Munich, runners-up in the preliminary round. Then three victories are necessary to advance.
Of course, DEG is then a blatant outsider. For Kreis, it could be the last games as a Düsseldorf coach. After a total of six years as coach of the eight-time German champions, he is moving to Schwenninger for the coming season Wild Wings. His successor in Düsseldorf is to be the Swede Roger Hansson. This has not yet been officially confirmed by the club.
Source: red/sid/dpa