The Adler Mannheim beat the Augsburg Panthers 3:4 (1:2, 1:0, 1:1, 0:0, 0:1) lost after a penalty shootout and are in a mini-crisis.
With the defeat, Mannheim also lost touch with leaders Eisbären Berlin, who are hosting the Straubing Tigers on Sunday (from 2 p.m. in the live ticker on sportschau.de).
Panther attacker Luke Esposito was the only shooter to convert his penalty. Tom Kühnhackl (20th), top striker Matthias Plachta (31st) and Linden Vey (50th) on the Mannheim side as well as Chris Collings (18th), Matt Puempel (20th) and Moritz Elias (47th) for Augsburg had previously played in the regular playing time.
This week the Adler had already suffered painful defeats at the bottom of the table in Düsseldorf (1:4) and against the second-to-last Iserlohn (4:7).