New head coach, old suffering: After the disappointing start to the season, the Mannheim Adler are still unable to find their way.
In game one under head coach Dallas Eakins, the ninth-place team lost the derby at the Schwenninger Wild Wings 1:3 (1:1, 0:0, 0:2), for Mannheim it was the seventh defeat in their ninth appearance in November. “We don’t need negativity”Eakins had said beforehand, that this would destroy “everything in the long run”.
The start in the Black Forest was extremely positive, Jyrki Jokipakka (3rd) scored early with a double advantage. But Schwenningen’s Daniel Pfaffengut (19th) equalized, in the final third Benjamin Marshall (42nd) scored in the power play and Kyle Platzer (48th) gave the fourth-placed team their fifth win in a row.
The struggling Eagles pulled the ripcord on Monday – head coach Johan Lundskog, who only moved to Mannheim before the season, and sports manager Jan-Axel Alavaara had to leave. Former NHL head coach Eakins took over for both of them.