Tomorrow, Wednesday, the Vienna Capitals will start the pre-playoffs of the win2day ICE Hockey League against Hydro Fehérvár AV19. The first game of the “Best of Three” series starts at 7:15 p.m. in the STEFFL Arena. The Capitals won three of four meetings between the two teams in the regular season and want to start the post-season with a positive result tomorrow. The first pre-playoff game can be seen on sporteurope.tv.
Initial situation:
The Vienna Capitals concluded the regular season last Sunday with a 3-2 win after overtime at the EC-KAC. With this success, head coach Kevin Constantine’s team ended a number of negative series and can go into the pre-playoff of the win2day ICE Hockey League with a lot of self-confidence. The Caps finished the regular season in seventh place with 68 points. This meant that the capital city team was able to choose their opponent in the pre-playoffs for the first time since the current post-season format was introduced. This choice fell on the tenth-placed Hydro Fehérvár AV19. This means a new edition of the pre-playoff series from the previous season will take place. The consistent injury issues the Caps have had to contend with this season are illustrated by the fact that only two players have played all 48 regular season games, Zane Franklin and Carter Souch.
The latter played a major role in the 3-2 win in Klagenfurt with a goal and an assist. Souch finished the regular season with 20 goals, making him the Vienna Capitals’ top scorer. The 24-year-old is tied for eighth place in the league-wide top scorers list. The Viennese’s top scorer in the previous regular season was captain Linden Vey, who finished the regular season with 44 points (11 goals + 33 assists). With his 33 assists, the Canadian is tied for fourth place in the league-wide assist rankings. With a catch rate of 92.36 percent, Sebastian Wraneschitz ranks third in the league among all goalies who have made more than eight appearances. The Capitals’ special teams finished the regular season in the top half of the table. With a success rate of 23.39 percent, the Viennese power play is the fifth best in the win2day ICE Hockey League. The outnumbered game ranks fourth with a success rate of 81.02 percent. This means that the Caps have the statistically best special teams among all four pre-playoff teams.
Personnel:
The two new signings Kevin Macierzynski and Ramón Schnetzer arrived in Vienna yesterday evening and have already trained with the team today. Senna Peeters, who scored the important goal to equalize 2-2 on Sunday, suffered a lower body injury against EC-KAC. The 23-year-old, who was only able to play nine games in the regular season due to an upper body injury, will be out for weeks again. Erik Kirchschläger, Nelson Nogier and Marco Richter will also not be there tomorrow.
The opponent:
Hydro Fehérvár AV19 only booked their place in the pre-playoff after a heart-stopping final last Sunday against FTC-Telekom. Ted Dent’s team, who couldn’t afford a defeat after regular time in the derby, fell behind with 2:19 minutes to go. Only 34 seconds before the end of the 60 minutes, Fehérvár top scorer Anze Kuralt scored the redeeming equalizer, which sent the game into overtime and the home team secured their pre-playoff ticket. Hydro Fehérvár AV19 only scored 113 goals during the regular season, which, together with Pioneers Vorarlberg, is the lowest score in the win2day ICE Hockey League. This compares to 158 goals conceded, the fourth most. The special teams also have below-average values compared to the league. Both the power play (17.36%) and the penalty killing (78.01%) only rank tenth. Anze Kuralt leads his team in points (34), goals (16) and assists (18). The only player in the Hungarian squad who has a positive plus/minus value is Csanad Erdely, who is at +2 after 48 regular season games.
The direct duel:
This season there will be a new edition of the pre-playoff duel from the previous season. At that time, Hydro Fehérvár AV19 won 2-1 in a close series. In the previous regular season, the Caps were able to win three of four regular season games. On October 29, 2025, the Viennese won 6-3 thanks to a hat trick from captain Vey. Almost a month later, on November 26, 2025, the Caps won 3-1 at the STEFFL Arena. The Caps’ only defeat in the previous regular season was on December 26, 2025 with a score of 1:2. Last Friday the Caps celebrated a 4-3 shootout win at the STEFFL Arena.
Linden Vey, captain of the Vienna Capitals
“The previous duels against Fehérvár were close and competitive, that will not change in the pre-playoffs. From the four games against each other, both teams know how the other will play. Now it’s about how to best implement their own game. The team that does better will advance to the quarter-finals. The victory in Klagenfurt at the end of the regular season was great, also because we achieved it away from home. Away from the STEFFL Arena, we are over “We’ve had a hard time at home for long stretches of the season and have now won our last two away games. Our goal is to continue to improve over the course of the post-season.”
vienna-capitals.at , Image: Manfred Szieber
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