After the 0-2 home defeat against Vienna Capitals, the away game at HC Innsbruck is on the program for the KAC on Sunday. die Redjackets want to get back on the road to success.

THE STARTING POINT:
The EC-KAC had to accept its first defeat in front of its own audience on Friday after 13 home wins in a row across all competitions and seasons, the red jackets missed a great goal chances against the Vienna Capitals and documents with 0: 2.

The record champions have thus lost three games in a row for the first time since the playoff quarter-finals against Linz in March 2020. In the table, the Klagenfurters were overtaken by Znojmo and Salzburg and are now in seventh place. Head coach Petri Matikainen’s team only conceded a total of ten goals against HC Innsbruck in the last six duels.

HC Innsbruck is the only club in the league to have played six games this season, on Friday the Tyroleans introduced their third success of the current season, ie they prevailed away at HK Olimpija Ljubljana 4-3 after extra time. In the first duel of the season with the red jackets, held two weeks ago in Klagenfurt, the Haie will clearly be defeated 2: 6, but were an equal opponent for two sections in this encounter. Overall, the Haie’s track record against the EC-KAC in the recent past has been rather poor: Ten of the last 13 confrontations went to Rot-Weiß, Klagenfurt left the Tyrolean capital victorious in five of its last six guest appearances.

THE OPPONENT:
|| PLAYER IN FOCUS ||
In the 4: 3 away win in Slovenia’s capital on Friday, Michael Hunbtebrinker scored three points, and in the first season duel with the red jackets in mid-September, the American was one of the most noticeable players in the HCI. In the team’s internal scorer standings, right behind the center forward (six games, seven points) is his line colleague Alex Dostie (four appearances, five points), who made his comeback on Friday in Ljubljana after a short injury break. Thus, Die Haie can again fall back on all eleven under contract import players. Of the Austrian cracks, newcomer Nico Feldner played in the foreground in the first six games of the season, the striker who returned from Salzburg in his Tyrolean homeland was recently allowed to play alongside Huntebrinker / Dostie in the nominally first formation.

|| BALANCE SHEET AGAINST THE EC-KAC ||
HC Innsbruck has been a regular opponent of the EC-KAC since the league was re-established in 2000 (and apart from a three-year break between 2009 and 2012): Of the 114 matches so far, the Haie 46 and the Rotjacken 68
decide, also the goal difference speaks clearly for the Carinthians with 393: 316. They had a rather difficult position at performances in the Tyrolean capital for many years, while 75.9 percent of the historical duels were victorious at home, while it was only 42.9 percent abroad. However, the record champions have successively improved their record on the Inn in recent years: EC-KAC won five of the last six away games against HCI, with only eight losses.

|| THE LAST DUEL ||
ECKAC and HC Innsbruck met in round two of the current bet-at-home ICE Hockey League season, the red jackets won 6-2 on September 18, 2021 on their own ice. However, the encounter was much more even than the result would suggest, the sharks were at eye level in the first two sections of an opponent. In total, Die Haie spent 46.3 percent of their time in this game with target possession in the offensive zone – the highest figure for a KAC opponent in the current game year. The decisive players for the Klagenfurt team in this encounter were Nick Petersen, who posted a hat trick (8th, 57th and 59th), and Clemens Unterweger, who won the game with a plus / minus rating of +3 and a Corsi-For-Percentage of 73.2 percent (30:11 attempts to shoot while standing on the ice) ended.

THE PERSONNEL:
At the EC-KAC, all squad players are still operational, so it can be assumed that the 22-man squad WILL be made up of exactly those players, like the one in the 2-0 home defeat against Vienna on Friday. Dennis Sticha, who came against the Capitals as the 13th striker only to a very limited Ice Age, will play in the home game of the AHL team against his home club Feldkirch on Saturday in order to get additional match practice. The lineup of red jackets in the duel with Innsbruck will include 50.25 cadre points for the third time in a row.

THE COMMENT:
“After the clear defeat in Znojmo, we improved our performance in Dornbirn, but even there we could only score one goal. Playfully, also in terms of the system, but also in terms of passion and intensity, we were able to improve again against Vienna, we only failed because of efficiency. We often didn’t hit the empty goal, we had picket shots. The party in Innsbruck & we go through with it again, because at some point the disc will jump for us and go in. “(Martin Schumnig, defender EC-KAC)

10/02/2021