After the setback in the Champions Hockey League on Wednesday, the Red Jackets want to build on their last six-point weekend in the championship when HC Pustertal visits Klagenfurt on Sunday.
The EC-KAC, which recently won twice in a row in the win2day ICE Hockey League (four wins, three defeats), will play again in the home Heidi Horten Arena on Sunday, October 12, 2025, before four away games in a row in the CHL and league. Guests in Klagenfurt will be the in-form HC Pustertal (six wins, two defeats), who have won each of their away games so far in the young season. The game starts at 5:30 p.m. and will be broadcast as usual in a live stream on Sporteurope.TV
The initial situation
The EC-KAC had to accept a bitter 1:4 home defeat against GKS Tychy in the Champions Hockey League during the week, which drastically reduced Klagenfurt’s chances of reaching the round of 16 in the premier class. In the win2day ICE Hockey League, however, the Red Jackets had two 3-2 wins last weekend (in Linz and against Budapest). The runner-up is in eighth place in the table, but has only played seven games; a ranking based on average points puts Red-White in sixth place. The poor hit rate on offense is partly responsible for the rather mixed start to the season: currently 2.86 goals scored per game correspond to a whopping minus of 20.0 percent compared to the previous two seasons. Especially in home games, where they have ten successful goals from four encounters, the EC-KAC has so far lacked penetration: with 134 shots on goal, they have a moderate hit rate of 7.5 percent on their own ice.
The story
Although HC Pustertal has only been represented in the win2day ICE Hockey League for four years, it already has a rich history with the EC-KAC, which is primarily due to the two playoff duels in the last two seasons: In 2024, the Red Jackets won the semi-finals 4-0, and in 2025 they won 4-2 in the quarter-finals. In total, the 26 individual matches played so far have brought 16 red-white victories, with the South Tyroleans prevailing ten times. Especially in the Heidi Horten Arena, the EC-KAC’s recent performance against the Wolves has been quite positive: seven of the last eight home games against HC Pustertal were won, three times the Red Jackets didn’t concede a goal at all and a total of only twelve lost goals. The Klagenfurt team recently had problems against head coach Jason Jaspers’ team, especially in games with numerical superiority: They only scored in one of the last eight encounters in the power play, during this period only a meager two goals resulted from 22 outnumbered situations.
Personnel
The EC-KAC is currently affected by a veritable series of injuries, and at least five regulars will also be missing against HC Pustertal. In addition to the long-term injured Fabian Hochegger, as the examinations during the week revealed, David Maier will also have to watch for a longer period of time due to a lower body injury suffered in Linz last Friday. Luka Gomboc was eliminated from the CHL game on Wednesday. The treatment approach for him is still being decided, but in any case he will be missing for at least a few weeks.
Also not an issue for the game on Sunday is the participation of center forwards Jan Muršak (injured) and Mario Kempe (back in off-ice training after illness). Expected back in the lineup for this home game are defender Jordan Murray (recently injured) and striker Matt Fraser (recently ill), both of whom were able to train without any symptoms on Saturday. Johannes Dobrovolny (17) will also make his debut in the win2day ICE Hockey League against HC Pustertal; so far he has only been in the red and white squad in CHL matches.
www.kac.at, picture: Foppa Iwan – HC Pustertal
