The win2day ICE Hockey League will experience the top game on Sunday evening between the second and first in the current table, the EC-KAC will be visiting the Graz99ers in Styria.
In its 45th game of the season in the win2day ICE Hockey League, the EC-KAC (31 wins, 13 defeats) will play away at the Graz99ers (30 wins, 14 defeats) on Sunday, February 22, 2026. The Styrians are the Red Jackets’ first pursuers in the table; before the summit meeting in Murstadt, the two teams are separated by four points with four games still remaining in the regular season. The game starts in the sold-out Merkur Ice Stadium at 6:30 p.m., Sporturope.TV
The EC-KAC recorded two shutout home wins against Linz (4:0) and Ljubljana (2:0) during the long Olympic break and have therefore not conceded a goal for almost 140 minutes of play. The success against the Slovenians on Friday evening secured the Red Jackets home advantage in the playoff quarter-finals and pushed two further milestones into the realm of possibility for the game on Sunday: every point gained in Graz is equivalent to the right to pick in the quarter-finals, every victory (even after extra time or a penalty shootout) would secure the record champions’ third participation in the Champions Hockey League in a row and their seventh overall. In Styria, the Klagenfurt team is once again relying on their away strength; they currently have exactly the same number of points away from home, 47, as they do from home games. The good season record so far away from home was based primarily on a stable and reliable defense: the number of goals actually conceded in away games was below the respective expected goals against value in 18 out of 22 cases, and overall Klagenfurt has already prevented 15.4 expected losses in road games in 2025/26.
Two comebacks on defense
The EC-KAC has a new addition to the defense for the game in Graz: Maximilian Preiml returns to the lineup after his two-game ban, and Jesper Jensen Aabo is also back in the game. The captain of the Danish national team returned to Klagenfurt from the Winter Olympics in Milan on Thursday, but his equipment was not transferred in time at the airport in Zurich, so he missed the game on Friday evening. The defender completed optional ice training on Saturday, meaning that all squad players are available to the Red Jackets with the exception of the long-term injured Thomas Hundertpfund and Luka Gomboc.
www.kac.at, Image: Rantanplan2910
“), i.text = “window._taboola = window._taboola || ();_taboola.push({mode:’alternating-thumbnails-a’, container:’taboola-below-article-thumbnails’, placement:’below-article’, target_type: ‘mix’});”, n.appendChild(l), n.appendChild(i), e(n, t) } Array.prototype.filter || (Array.prototype.filter = function(e, t) { if (“function” != typeof e) throw TypeError(); let n = (); for (let l = 0, i = this.length >>> 0; l < i; l += 1) if (l in this) { let r = this(l); e.call(t, r, l, this) && n.push(r) } return n }), window.insertAfter = e, window.getElementByXPath = t, window.injectWidgetByXpath = function e(l) { let i = t(l) ||. document.getElementById("tbdefault"); i && n(i) }, window.injectWidgetByMarker = function e
Similar posts
