AEV: The Panthers buy the cutting edge from the Austrian champions
The Augsburg Panthers clearly defeated EC Red Bull Salzburg 7:2 in the first home friendly. The basis for the AEV victory is a strong first third with four goals.
die Augsburg Panther have won the first of two friendlies at their home Curt Frenzel Stadium. It was 7:2 (4:0, 0:2, 3:0) after 60 entertaining minutes against EC Red Bull Salzburg. In front of almost 3000 spectators, the hosts had put the Austrian ice hockey offshoot of the shower empire under pressure from the start. The new AEV trainer Peter Russell has been preaching like a prayer wheel since his first day at work augsburgthat he wants to play a system based on fast, aggressive forechecking.
With each of the five preparatory games that have now been completed, his team has internalized that more. In the first few minutes, the Austrians seemed overwhelmed by the fact that the Panthers literally didn’t give them an inch of space for any kind of build-up game. The two newcomers Samuel Soramies (2nd) and Ryan Kuffner (3rd) quickly gave Augsburg a 2-0 lead. Only now did Salzburg get into the game a little better – but they have to appear very differently on Thursday when they play their first competitive game in the Champions Hockey League against the Norwegian champions Stavanger Oilers.
Before the first break it was already 4:0 for the Panthers
In any case, the dress rehearsal in Augsburg failed, because Vinny Saponari (13th) and Justin Volek (20th), after a wonderful pass from Thomas J. Trevelyan, increased the lead to 4:0 before the break in the first period.
Ahead of the game, Russell had decided that Brady Lamb would continue to captain the Panthers. He took over this job from Steffen Tölzer in March 2020. “Brady Lamb has been a Panther for many years and is important to our team. The club and Augsburg are very important to him. With the support of the coaching staff and his team-mates, he will continue to be a perfect captain for us,” said Russell. Lamb’s assistants are Henry Haase, Drew LeBlanc and newcomer Dave Warsofsky.
The game got bigger in the second third
In the second third, the Panthers got the opportunity to work on their majority game. The reason was that the guests now put up much more resistance and overstretched the rules a few times in an increasingly rough game. On the other hand, the hosts found it difficult to use the resulting numerical superiority. Even when the Panther was on the ice with two more men for over a minute, that didn’t change the score at first.
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At the end of the second third, the greatly improved work attitude of the pros from Salzburg paid off. First Thomas Raffl in the majority (38th), then Lucas Thaler (39th) shortened to 2:4. Salzburg fought back into the game. But the spark of hope to turn the game around was extinguished by Henry Haase with a humorless slap shot to make it 5:2 (44th). When David Stieler increased it to 6:2 (46th), the decision was made. The 7: 2 by Drew LeBlanc (52nd) was only a cosmetic result.
The Panthers will play their second test home game next Friday. Then from 7.30 p.m. Klagenfurter AC will be guests in the Curt Frenzel Stadium.
Augsburg Panther: Keller – Gregorc, Warsofsky; lamb, miner; Sacher, Longer; Rogl, Rabbit – Wannstrom, LeBlanc, Kuffner; Payerl, stalkerMorand; SaponariSoramies, Clarke; Volek, Trevelyan