KAC & Salzburg suffer defeat
The Slovenians won 6: 3 at the table stragglers Graz99ers on Tuesday, while their first Austrian rivals KAC (2: 6 in Bratislava) and Red Bull Salzburg (1: 3 in Znojmo) lost away. The second Fehervar, who was four points behind, scored a 3-2 after extra time in Villach.
The Vienna Capitals drove in a 5: 4 after penalty shootout in Linz the fourth victory in the last five games. Innsbruck also prevailed in the second western derby of the season against Dornbirn thanks to five goals in the final third (6: 3) and is now third.
Salzburg & Raffl with defeat
A series of five games ended for Salzburg, which were only decided after regular time, with a defeat after 60 minutes. Although the game was open for a long time after the equalizer by Jan-Mikael Järvinen, the Bulls did not recover from the recent deficit due to a solo by Anthony Luciani (52nd), even with the recovered Alexander Pallestrang and captain Thomas Raffl.
The VSV was preparing to take revenge for the two defeats in Hungary in what was already the third duel of the season. Thanks to goals from Scott Kosmachuk (13th / PP) and Marco Richter (26th) it looked good for a long time, but Alex Petan shot Fehervar into overtime (59th). The KAC drove home from Bratislava without a point. Goalie Jakob Holzer had to reach behind him five times on his debut in the top division. The close game slipped away from the Klagenfurt team, who had not had the longer-injured striker Nick Petersen, in the third third (0: 3).
The strong series of results of the Vienna Capitals continued in Linz. The Viennese led 3-1 early on, but could not follow up on the last strong defensive performances. The Linz “Lebensversicherung” Brian Lebler delivered the next goal twice and scored the goals to 3: 3 and 4: 3 himself. Matt Prapavessis saved the caps in goalless overtime before the Danish caps top scorer Nicolai Meyer, who had previously prepared three goals was the only one to sink his penalty.
In the hard-fought western derby, Innsbruck had the clearest breath in the end. The Tyroleans made up a 0-2 deficit on the way to their fourth win in a row, Lukas Bär became the match winner with the goals to 4: 3 (48th) and 6: 3 (57th). Dornbirn lost for the fourth time in a row, but could at least look forward to the comeback of Jesse Saarinen, who assisted to make it 1-0 and scored 2-0.
The 99ers hit the loser road early on against Laibach. Already after the start third the Styrians were 3-0 down, goalkeeper Niklas Lundström cleared the ice after 17 minutes. Felix Nussbacher didn’t fare better either, after 40 minutes he was forced twice (2: 5). It does not matter that the Graz team successfully signed off league top scorer Guillaume Leclerc.