On Friday evening, the EC-KAC welcomes the Vienna Capitals, who they recently defeated ten times in a row in regular time, to the Heidi Horten Arena. kac.at summarizes the most important information about this encounter.
In the first of two home games this coming weekend, the EC-KAC (twelve wins, six defeats) will play against the Vienna Capitals (seven wins, eleven defeats) on Friday, November 21, 2025. The in-form Red Jackets have not lost against Vienna on their own ice for three years and eight months and want to extend this proud series in the very well-filled Heidi Horten Arena. The match, which begins at 7:15 p.m., will be broadcast live on Sporteurope.TV (opens in new window).
REPORTING
The match will be broadcast in a live stream (pay-per-view) produced by EC-KAC and broadcast via the platform of the win2day ICE Hockey League’s streaming partner, Sporteurope.TV(Opens in new window). The broadcast begins with the preliminary reports at 7 p.m. Radio Kärnten (available online via sound.orf.at(Opens in new window)) will also provide information about the game in the Kärntner Eishockeymagazin (from 8:04 p.m.).
The initial situation:
The EC-KAC has won ten of its last 13 games and scored points in twelve of these encounters, the only exception being the 3:5 away defeat in the Carinthian derby last Friday. Just two days later, the red jackets returned to winning ways with a 5-2 win at second-placed Olimpija Ljubljana. In the Slovenian capital, the Klagenfurt team scored the same number of power play goals with three as in the previous seven games combined. The record champions are in fourth place in the current table of the win2day ICE Hockey League; in the ranking based on average points, they are already very close to second place in third place. So far, 2.39 goals conceded in the game correspond to the best value in the league (together with the Graz99ers), 48.1 expected goals against are compared to only 43 actual ones over the course of the season. The previously stable penalty killing began to stutter last week: the EC-KAC conceded each of the last five and six of the most recent eight goals due to numerical inferiority. The Red Jackets were able to score points five times in a row in front of their own crowd; the last two home games against Innsbruck (5:1) and Linz (5:3) were both won in regular time.
The Vienna Capitals were only able to play successfully in one of their last five league games and come to Klagenfurt as currently eleventh in the table. The two-time champions have had a difficult time so far this season, especially against the top teams; against teams that are currently in one of the top six places, Vienna only got four out of 21 possible points. The Donaustadters, who were the first club in the league this year to place their head coach on leave (after the home defeat against EC-KAC), have been struggling with some bad luck with injuries in the championship so far. From the core of local players, three established players, goalie Sebastian Wraneschitz and the two ex-Klagenfurt players Marco Richter and Senna Peeters, have long-term injuries. The Caps’ outnumbered game has been very stable so far, with a success rate of 83.1 percent, the second highest value among all 13 ICE teams. Since head coach Kevin Constantine took over, the power play has not yet been able to get off to a good start with a goal on 15 occasions, but the seasonal mark of 21.1 percent is certainly manageable and is only surpassed by four teams in the competition.
The story:
One year after the league was founded (2000), the Vienna Capitals began their involvement in Austria’s top division, to which they have been a member ever since. In these almost two and a half decades there were 163 direct encounters with the EC-KAC, which won the majority of 92 games in its favor. The Red Jackets have more wins than defeats against Vienna in both home (win rate: 60.0 percent) and away games (53.0 percent). In recent years in particular, Red and White have had an excellent record against the capital club: each of the last ten duels went to the record champions, who were always able to prevail in regular time (30:0 points) and had a solid goal difference of 47:21. The last Capitals win against the Red Jackets, a 4-1 win in Kagran, was dated January 6, 2023, so it was 1,050 days ago on Friday.
The first encounter of the current season took place on October 17th in the Steffl Arena, with the Klagenfurt team, who never trailed, winning 3-2. The EC-KAC had a playful advantage, which was ultimately reflected in 31:22 shots on goal. With good forechecks and strong duels, the Red Jackets limited the Viennese’s room for maneuver: Each puck possession sequence for the Capitals lasted an average of just 9.86 seconds, making it shorter than that of any red-white opponent in the current ICE season (average: 11.64).
Personnel:
The Red Jackets are still missing the quartet of long-term injured players: Nick Petersen is currently only working on his return off the ice, Luka Gomboc is already taking part in the team’s sessions (without contact), and David Maier made his first tentative attempts on the ice again on Thursday. Jordan Murray underwent surgery this week due to a serious lower body injury and will be out for several months. New signing Josh Teves is expected in Klagenfurt at the weekend and will start training with the record champions next week. Center forward Daniel Obersteiner was missing at the start of the week due to a minor illness, but has now recovered and is available for the duel with the Vienna Capitals.
Pre-Game Commentary – Finn Van Ee
“In the three games after the international break, we actually played our game throughout. Against Villach we also performed the way we had imagined, the puck just didn’t bounce for us. Since I’ve been in the team, I can’t remember that we’ve come back from an international break so emphatically and consistently. Despite the defeat against EC VSV: That happens in sport, you can play well and still lose, there’s always a spark of luck involved.”
“For me personally, it’s a lot of fun to play ice hockey at the moment, we have great morale in our team. Everyone is enjoying it, suddenly the power play, which has always caused us problems, is working. The minority hasn’t been that strong recently, we have to admit that and clean up the penalty killing, then things are looking very good for the future.”
“We can be very happy with our new line for the last three games. As a relatively young player from Carinthia, it is an honor for me to act together in a block with a Thomas Hundertpfund or Raphael Herburger. I played with the number 89 in the youth ranks because I was such a Herburger fan. It also works really well, Thomas scored two goals against Linz, Raphael scored in the power play in Ljubljana. Personally, I still have to work on getting more into the center “I could easily get a few more goals. After all, we have a lot of possession of the puck and we have chances. Now it’s important to take advantage of them.”
“Vienna is a tough team, there are some physically strong, big players in their ranks. This also applies to some of their new signings, we could see that in the pre-season and in the first duel, where it got rough at times. Against a team like that, we have to stay smart, not make unnecessary fouls and, above all, not allow ourselves to be provoked. Act hard ourselves, play our own game, then we should be fine on Friday.”
kac.at Image: Kuess/www.qspictures.net
