Nico Sturm had a possible win against the world champion in mind, but the Stanley Cup winner only hit the crossbar – and was frustrated after the second narrow World Cup defeat against a title favorite.
“We played great again, were more than equal, would have deserved points,” said the NHL striker after the German national ice hockey team’s 3: 4 against defending champion and Olympic champion Finland, “it’s already bitter now.”
When the score was 2-1, the 28-year-old had a great chance to make a preliminary decision, but failed because of the goal posts, as did captain Moritz Müller in the closing stages. “I don’t know what we should do differently,” said Sturm, a little at a loss: “We scored three goals against a super defensive team. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough in the end.”
After the 0-1 draw against Sweden, Marcel Noebels (18th), Kai Wissmann (33rd) and NHL rookie John-Jason Peterka (40th) scored the first World Cup goals, but only 13 shots reached the Finnish goal . “A little more traffic in front of the goal, a little more slices towards the goal” is what Sturm wanted for the next game on Monday (3:20 p.m. CEST/Sport1 and MagentaSport) against the USA, “maybe we sometimes want to make it a little too nice – also on the power play. We need to get a little dirtier.”