In the third game in five days, the Red Jackets will play away against the second-placed team this evening. The Red Jackets will find the most important information about the duel with Olimpija Ljubljana on kac.at. together as follows.
The EC-KAC (eleven wins, six defeats) continues its program in the win2day ICE Hockey League on Sunday, November 16, 2025, with an away game in Slovenia. The Red Jackets play against second-placed Olimpija Ljubljana (13 wins, five defeats), who have never been defeated in regular time in their nine home games so far in 2025/26. The opening faceoff at Hala Tivoli is scheduled for 6 p.m.
The initial situation:
The EC-KAC suffered a setback on Friday evening: After scoring points in each of its eleven games since the end of September, the record champions came away empty-handed in the first Carinthian derby of the season. The Red Jackets once again showed morale and equalized a three-goal deficit, but after too many mistakes and penalties they lost to EC VSV 3:5. In the table, the Klagenfurt team is tied for fourth place with the third-place team from Graz. In Villach, the usually stable penalty killing did not work well enough; seven outnumbered situations for the Eagles resulted in the same number of goals conceded (three) as from the previous 19 phases of numerical inferiority from the red and white perspective. The EC-KAC conceded more than three goals in the derby for only the third time in the current season, but no team in the league beats their season average of 2.41. After six away wins in a row, Rot-Weiß recently suffered two defeats away from home, in both cases the efficiency was below average: out of a total of 71 shots on goal in Feldkirch and Villach, only four goals resulted, which results in a weak success rate of 5.6 percent. Nevertheless, far away from home in the ICE, only two teams – leaders HC Pustertal and the Graz99ers – have currently collected more points than the EC-KAC.
Personnel:
The Red Jackets not only lost the three points they were aiming for on Friday evening in Villach, but also Jordan Murray. The Canadian defender suffered a serious lower body injury in the 50th minute of the game, will have to undergo surgery next week and will be absent from the EC-KAC for the long term. The long-term injured David Maier, Luka Gomboc and Nick Petersen are still unavailable, although the Slovenian has already made his first light contact with the ice. Against Ljubljana, Filip Simovic, who for this reason did not take part in the U20 team’s road trip to Hungary this weekend, moved back into the top six in defense.
Pre-game commentary:
Mathias From: “The game in Villach wasn’t easy, there were a lot of emotions involved, but overall I think we performed well. Especially at Even Strength it was okay, we were inferior in the special teams, they had an efficient power play, we didn’t. Overall, the feelings after this game are negative because we lost, but on closer inspection we did a lot of things well, which is what we can take from this game. A game is rarely as bad as you think immediately after the final siren you lost. We stay positive.”
“Everyone knows that I had problems scoring goals this year, so it’s a good feeling to have scored in three games in a row for the national team and the club. But for me, the most important thing is to be part of a team that wins games, and goals obviously contribute to that. I’m never satisfied with myself if I can’t influence a game. At the moment, playing is a little easier when you subconsciously have the good feeling that you can probably take advantage of opportunities that arise.”
“Olimpija is a skillful team that plays good ice hockey. Their coach came to Ljubljana after several years in Salzburg and you get the impression that they want to copy the Bulls’ style of play to a certain extent, which they are doing well. They have some very dangerous people, so we can expect a difficult away game. We are preparing for that today and tomorrow. I think that if we continue to play like we did last time in Villach, we will be a little more stable at the back and make fewer mistakes. have a good chance of scoring several points on Sunday.”
www.kac.at, image: Domen Jancic
