The Vienna Capitals are hosting the Pioneers Vorarlberg in the STEFFL Arena today. For the Viennese, today’s duel in the 13th round of the win2day ICE Hockey League is the first game after ex-head coach Gerry Fleming’s leave of absence. The dry spell against Vorarlberg should also come to an end. The game starts at 7:15 p.m., sporteurope.tv will broadcast live as usual.
After eleven games played, the Vienna Capitals are in tenth place in the table with 13 points. The last four matches were all lost, even though points were still taken against HC Falkensteiner Pustertal and EC Red Bull Salzburg. Former head coach Gerry Fleming was released on Monday, and the previous assistant coach Fabian Scholz will be primarily responsible for the professional team for the first time tomorrow.
Season debut for Gregoire
The 35-year-old interim head coach can rely on almost his entire team against the Pioneers. Jérémy Grégoire, who has only been able to play in two pre-season games due to two separate lower body injuries, will make his competitive debut this season against Feldkirch. Goalkeeper Sebastian Wraneschitz, who was recently ill, is also back on board. The long-term injured Senna Peeters and Leon Wallner, who is suffering from the effects of a lower body injury, will be missing tomorrow.
Break negative streak against Pioneers
The Viennese team now has an inglorious losing streak of six games against the Ländle cracks. The people of Donaustadt suffered five of these defeats during the Fleming era. As a result, after the Caps’ initial seven wins in a row, the balance is now almost even.
The Pioneers’ top scorers are Collin Adams, Oskar Maier and Cole Gallant, who each have six points. Adams is the West Austrians’ top scorer with four goals. While the Caps power play ranks sixth in the league with a success rate of 22.2 percent, the Pioneers power play is the worst in the win2day ICE Hockey League with just three goals out of 30 attempts.
Statement Jérémy Grégoire, Vienna Capitals attacker
“The last few weeks and months have been difficult for me, I’m just looking forward to being able to play again. The ice skating went well this week, I feel fit. This situation is something new for me, before I could play my first game there was a change of coach. Gerry was a good man, but now we have to start again. The training week was positive. Vorarlberg is always in a good mood against us, so we want to put an exclamation mark tomorrow.”
www.vienna-capitals.at, Image: Leo Vymlatil
