After the Linzers had to accept a bitter 0:4 defeat yesterday, Friday, they will host the league leaders of the win2day ICE Hockey League at the Untere Donaulände tomorrow, Sunday. Attention: The game starts at 3:30 p.m.!
The opponent
Less than 48 hours after the painful defeat in Salzburg, the next difficult task awaits the Steinbach Black Wings. With Olimpija Ljubljana, the current league leaders are coming to the Linz AG Eisarena. The “green dragons” are just ahead of the wolves from Pustertal with one point – albeit with one game more. The Slovenians have already achieved 14 wins this season. After the international break they suffered defeats against Pustertal and KAC, but found their usual strength again in the game against Villach on Friday. A crucial component of the Dragons’ success is their power play: with a power play efficiency of 33.33%, they have the top value in the league.
They are also extremely stable in penalty killing and are just behind the Graz99ers with 83.33%. In the league-wide scoring statistics, two Dragons players, Nicolai Meyer and Terrence Brennan, occupy the top two places. In 20 games, the two strikers contributed a total of 67 points (27 goals and 40 assists). In the first meeting of the current season, the Linzers had to admit defeat by a score of 4:8. In this duel, the two top scorers were only not involved in one of the eight goals. However, the lower Donaulände has been a difficult place for the Dragons so far: the Slovenians have not been able to win in the Linz AG Eisarena since autumn 2021. The Upper Austrians have successfully defended their home fortress in the last six games and now want to continue this series against the league leaders.
Locker room update
The Steinbach Black Wings conceded three bitter goals yesterday and never found their rhythm due to many inaccuracies. With the additional absences of Steffan Gaffal and Christoph Tialler, who had to leave early, the task against the green dragons doesn’t get any easier. The latter received the all-clear in hospital, but like Greg Moro, will not yet be available in head coach Philipp Lukas’ line-up for tomorrow’s game against Ljubljana.
blackwings.at Image: BWL / Draxler
