Lions lose 0-2 at eleventh-placed Passau
There's something wrong with the Tölzer attack: not a single goal in two games. Six thirds without counting. And three goals conceded lead to two defeats. After the avoidable 0-1 defeat against Lindau, the Lions were superior to the Passau Black Hawks on Tuesday evening, had the better moves and attacks, the chances and more shots. But they couldn't get the disc over the line. Not a single one. And the goal was scored by the former second-to-last team in the Oberliga more or less with their first serious opportunity. “We have lost our determination and assertiveness,” says coach Axel Kammerer. “We didn’t manage to get past a good goalkeeper for the second game in a row, and my team has to be blamed for that.”
Schönberger is missing, but returnee Mateu Späth is there
Since half of it is nothing that shooting star Mateu Späth was spontaneously brought into the game by the Kölner Haien with a sponsorship license. Driver Sandro Schönberger was missing injured, but returnee Späth stormed in with his brother Justi and center forward Oliver Noack in the second row. Noack's shot from the right also ended up in the clutches of Marco Eisenhuth, who drove Tölzer to despair several times. It was also due to the quality of the shots that the Tölz team were not able to overcome the Passau keeper even once with 40 shots.
Total dominance, 40 shots, no goal
“At the beginning we played very structured, compact, disciplined, and had enough chances to score,” says Kammerer. In the second third, the Lions dominated the game even more. “We totally dominated opportunities and hardly allowed Passauer to play, but they took advantage of one,” says Kammerer. The home side only pose a threat through clever counterattacks via Arturs Sevcenko or Andrew Schembry. That was enough for the one goal: Carter Popoff pushed the puck across after winning the face-off, Aleandro Angaran left a few meters, converted twice and pushed the puck backhand past the stunned Tölzer and Enrico Salvarani into the goal. 31:17 shots on goal per Tölz after two thirds spoke a clear language. But Tölz's top players weren't able to score either. Even the reliable scorer Topi Piipponen seemed to be thinking more about the approaching birth date of his offspring.
Running behind the deficit
“We always kept up,” says Kammerer. “And we didn't manage to take advantage of our chances.” Neither did Klemen Pretnar, who checked Eisenhut several times when he lost his racket and temporarily borrowed a player's trowel. But even then the Passau goalie could not be defeated. Not even when Kammerer pulled the goalkeeper 90 seconds before the end. Instead of a Tölzer loss of the target, Popoff scored his empty goal to make it 0-2.
