Ice Hockey World Championship: Germany defeats France – and worries about Tim Stützle – ice hockey

Reinforcement could become important

After two days off, the game will only continue against Denmark on Thursday (3:20 p.m.). Should Stützle actually drop out, further reinforcements from North America would be all the more important: The DEB contacted Lukas Reichel from the Rockford IceHogs and Leon Gawanke from the Manitoba Moose after their end of the season in the second-rate North American AHL. Before the game against France, Söderholm did not know whether both were healthy and would travel to Finland at short notice.

Shortly before the World Cup, another very important creative attacker failed in the form of former NHL striker Dominik Kahun. Striker Reichel as a “constant creativity factor” (Söderholm) and defender Gawanke with strengths in build-up play and power play drew attention to themselves at the last World Cup in Riga and contributed to the semi-finals. Stützle was the great hope for the offensive.

Good performance confirmed

Still with the young Sturm talent, Germany initially confirmed the good performance of 2-1 on Saturday against Slovakia, who took part in the Olympics. The Söderholm squad quickly took the lead with a majority and was clearly dominating afterwards. Then the focus was on Stützle: After a check, the player from Viersen collapsed on the ice. And then made a stupid move on the way to the dressing room when he hit his stick and weakened his team with an unnecessary penalty time. Goalkeeper Mathias Niederberger, who this time was preferred to NHL goalie Philipp Grubauer from the Seattle Kraken, was beaten with a man down.