After a week of national team break, the win2day ICE Hockey League starts the intense pre-Christmas season with a real banger. After around a third of the regular round, there are two teams at the top that not everyone would have expected to be at the top before the start of the season: league leaders HC Falkensteiner Pustertal and pursuers Olimpija Ljubljana. A look at the numbers shows why both teams have been so successful so far.
Already in the first round of the new season, both Pustertal and Ljubljana made people take notice with clear victories – both won by seven goals each and immediately moved to the top of the table.
While the Slovenians secured themselves at the top in the first three weeks with six wins from as many games and an impressive goal difference of +25 – more than twice as high as the second-best team at that time – the Wolves from South Tyrol initially slipped to sixth place.
However, the big upswing followed in October: eight wins from nine games catapulted Bruneck to the top of the table before they suffered a clear 1:9 defeat in the derby against HCB Südtirol Alperia. During this winning streak, they replaced Olimpija as league leaders – and both teams have been in a close neck-and-neck race ever since.
Key to Olimpija Ljubljana’s success
The success of the dragons can be clearly proven statistically:
- Offensive power: Olimpija has scored 80 goals so far – 20 more than the second best offensive team (HCB Südtirol Alperia). That corresponds to an average of five hits per game. The outstanding duo Nicolai Meyer and TJ Brennan, who currently occupy the top two places in the scorers ranking (Meyer: 11 goals + 19 assists; Brennan: 10 goals + 17 assists), played a significant role in this.
- Powerplay: With a powerplay success rate of 31.88%, Ljubljana is playing at a historically high level. For comparison: Orli Znojmo held the previous best value in a completed season with 25.33% in 2021/22, just ahead of EC iDM Heat Pumps VSV (25.32%) last season. The Slovenians also create a particularly large number of outnumbered situations: 69 power plays have been recorded so far – a clear league record. The next pursuer, Villach, has 55.
Key to the success of HC Falkensteiner Pustertal
The strength of the South Tyroleans can be seen less from classic statistics. The team is midfield in many standard categories – and yet Pustertal collected points in 73% of its games, more than any other team in the league. There are clear reasons for this:
- First forward line: The top line with Cole Bardreau, Henry Bowlby and Nicholas Saracino is currently the most effective trio in the win2day ICE Hockey League. All three lead the league-wide plus/minus rating – no other line-up gives their team more of a lead when they’re on the ice. Bardreau in particular, the 32-year-old American with NHL experience, made a big impact in his first European season: up until the game against Bozen, he had a ten-game point scoring streak. Only Meyer and Brennan from Olimpija are currently ranked ahead of him in the league-wide scorer list.
- Away strength: Pustertal scores primarily on foreign ice: in nine away games there were only two defeats, and the Wolves only remained pointless once. This means they lead the away table – closely followed by the Moser Medical Graz99ers.
Direct duel for the top
Immediately after the international break there will now be a direct duel for the lead in the table – for the first time this season. The historical balance between the two teams is almost even: in 21 matches in the win2day ICE Hockey League, Olimpija prevailed eleven times and Pustertal ten times. Five of these games were only decided in overtime or in a shootout.
Pustertal is currently one point ahead of Ljubljana. Since the two teams have replaced each other at the top several times this season, that could change again on Wednesday if Olimpija wins the summit.
The encounter will be LIVE on Wednesday on Sporteurope.TV | Faceoff: 7:45 p.m
ice.hockey , picture: Foppa Iwan – HC Pustertal
