After the narrow defeat at home against the current league leaders from Ljubljana, the Adler will be fighting for important points against Hydro Fehervar AV19 tomorrow, Sunday (MÈT Arena, start: 6:00 p.m., live on Radio Kärnten Eishockey-Magazin and on sporteurope.tv). The Eagles want to rehabilitate themselves in Hungary and build on the strong performances of the recent past.
The initial situation:
The Eagles’ narrow 2-3 home defeat against Olimpija Ljubljana and the Red Bulls’ simultaneous 4-0 win gave the Blue and Whites a short-term setback in the win2day ICE Hockey League table: VSV slipped out of the top 6. After 18 games this season, Villach now has nine wins, six defeats, one success after extra time and two overtime defeats – a total of 31 points. With 60 goals scored and 54 goals conceded, head coach Tray Tuomie’s team continues to have a positive goal difference of +6. Despite the recent disappointment, the outlook remains promising: the top teams from Ljubljana, Klagenfurt and Pustertal are still within striking distance.
The Hungarians have also noticeably gained stability after the change of coach – Ted Dent took over for David Kiss – and have won three of their last five league games. After 20 games, they are in ninth place in the table with 27 points (7 wins, 9 defeats and two wins and two defeats after overtime). The direct duel promises excitement, because there is no clear favorite: six of the last ten matches went to the Hungarians, four to the VSV. The most recent meeting in Hungary ended as close as possible with 3-2 for the Eagles – the golden goal was scored by Max Coatta on December 18, 2024 after a fine assist from Kevin Hancock.
The opponent:
With an average age of 28.26 years, Hydro Fehérvár AV19 remains the second oldest team in the league behind HC Bozen. After David Kiss’s leave of absence, the club is relying on Ted Dent, who served as head coach in the AHL for years and most recently looked after the Augsburg Panthers in the DEL. In goal, Fehérvár relies on the duo Dominik Horváth and Rasmus Reijola, while the defense remained largely unchanged: the only new addition was the Norwegian Ole Einar Engeland, who came from HC Pustertal.
In attack, the Hungarians strengthened themselves with several import players: Darren Archibald, who caused a stir in Vienna in the 2020/21 season, faceoff specialist Drake Rymsha from Düsseldorf (DEL) and Justin Richards bring additional depth and quality to the offensive game. Although there are no personal connections to the EC iDM VSV, the team’s wealth of experience speaks for itself: Together, the Fehérvár players have made 59 NHL appearances, 164 games in the highest Swedish league and more than 1,000 games in the AHL.
Opponents and Stats to Watch:
Hydro Fehérvár AV19 shows a clearly divided profile this season. When outnumbered, the Hungarians are one of the most stable teams in the ICE League: they successfully overcome 53 of 64 situations, which corresponds to a rate of 82.81 percent, plus the most blocked shots of all teams with numerical inferiority. However, in the majority, little is achieved, with only 8 utilized power plays out of 51 attempts. There is also a problem when it comes to finishing: the scoring efficiency is only 7.61 percent, and Fehérvár needs an average of 13.1 shots on goal to score a goal.
This is reflected in the offensive production, because with only 42 goals scored, the team has the second lowest value in the league. The top scorer is Anže Kuralt with 10 points from 14 games, followed by Darren Archibald and Trevor Cheek, who each have 5 goals and 3 assists from 20 appearances. Defensively, Fehérvár is much more stable: 62 goals conceded mean midfield in the league, supported by the strong season performance of Rasmus Reijola, who has a catch rate of 91.56 percent after 16 appearances. Backup Dominik Horváth has 89.29 percent and a goals against average of 3.82.
Blue and White Stats & Facts:
The EC iDM Heat Pumps VSV continues to show a clear upward trend over the course of the season, especially in the outnumbered game: against Olimpija Ljubljana, the Eagles survived all three penalty kills against the strongest power play in the league to date. However, the efficiency in their own power play remains limited, no goals were scored against Ljubljana, and a total of 13 out of 68 attempts (19.12%) were scored. The outnumbered game is successful in 17 out of 60 situations (71.67%). The scoring efficiency also remains below the league average at 9.33%. Nikita Scherbak and Kevin Hancock continue to set the tone in a playful way. Scherbak has 7 goals and 17 assists after 18 games and impressed with one goal and nine assists in the last four games.
His line partner Hancock contributed four goals and one assist in the last four games and has a total of ten goals and seven assists for the season. This means that the two offensive forces remain the decisive drivers in the Blue-Whites’ game, and are also completed by line driver Elias Wallenta, who not only shone with four assists in the last four games, but also underlined his important role in the structure with 11 contacts won.
ecvsv.at Image: Soós Attila
