KAC received league leaders HC Innsbruck
© Sports report
In the win2day ICE Hockey League, record champions KAC have a home game against league leaders HC Innsbruck.
THE STARTING POINT:
EC-KAC played their last league game last Friday, a 4-1 loss at the Vienna Capitals means that the red jackets have gone without a point for the first time in the last nine games. In the table, the Klagenfurt occupies sixth place, in order to take this place at the end of the regular season and thus qualify for the playoffs early, the record champions probably need eight wins from the remaining 14 games. Matches played on home ice were mostly very close affairs this season: In eleven of the 17 games in the Heidi Horten Arena, only one goal separated EC-KAC from its respective guest at the end of the game.
HC Innsbruck comes to Klagenfurt as leaders, the Haie have had their most successful season in 20 years in Austria’s top division: they currently have an outstanding winning percentage of 69.4 percent, compared to the Tyroleans in the 19 previous seasons only 42.2 percent. Although only 36 parties have been contested, the HCI already has 25 wins to its credit, and the club has only been able to surpass this mark in one of the last ten seasons. With 4.00 goals scored per match, Innsbruck has the most goals of all ICE clubs, the average of the twelve competitors is significantly lower at 2.77. On an individual level, too, the key figures speak for great offensive power, as there are four cracks from the Tyrolean team in the first eight ranks of the league-wide scorer ranking.
THE OPPONENT:
| PLAYER FOCUS
With 24 goals this season, Adam Helewka is the top scorer in the league. The Canadian flourished in his seventh professional season, his first at HC Innsbruck, in a big way, having failed to surpass the seven-goal mark in any of his last three seasons. The center forward is also one of the big figures in the Haie’s strong power play, no other squad player is longer on the ice than he is in a majority situation (3:08 minutes per game). In terms of his 53 scorer points collected so far, he is only surpassed in the ICE by his compatriot and club colleague Brady Shaw: The winger, last year’s runner-up with Fehérvár AV19, has a large share of the game in all situations with the Tyroleans, so he’s not just the player with the most points in the HCI squad, but in the group of forwards also those with the highest time-on-ice in penalty killing. The Haie’s defense can only keep up to a limited extent with Innsbruck’s enormous penetrating power on the offensive, only four of the twelve league rivals have conceded more goals per game so far. The fact that the Tyroleans are currently showing their lowest goals against average since 2014/15 is largely due to goalkeeper Tom McCollum: The American has never had a shutout in his 106 league games for the club, but had to in his last five starts only once or twice.
| BALANCE AGAINST EC-KAC
HC Innsbruck is in its 20th season in Austria’s top division (2000 to 2009 and since 2012) and has played a total of 119 times against EC-KAC during this period. The historical balance clearly speaks for the Klagenfurt team with 70 versus 49 victories, although they have had to admit defeat to the Tyroleans in both previous meetings of the season. The Haie have only won 16 of their 60 appearances in Carinthia’s state capital, but the HCI has won ten of the last 25 games. Contrary to their primary offensive orientation, the Innsbruckers achieved these successes mostly thanks to a stable defense. In three of their last four home games against the Tyroleans, the Rotjacken only managed one goal each. HC Innsbruck has often been convincing against EC-KAC in the majority game, the six duels in the current and past season brought eight power play goals for the Haie, which in this period against Rot-Weiss had a success rate of 27.6 percent in the game with a regular advantage came.
| THE LAST DUEL
The most recent encounter between EC-KAC and HC Innsbruck dates back to November 1, when the Haie won 2-1 in front of 3,616 spectators in the Heidi Horten Arena. While the Redjackets dominated the game, eventually averaging 40-23 shots on target (including 31-13 at Even Strength), they struggled to find ways to create a reasonable number of truly winning opportunities. The record champions had a puck possession percentage of 60.7 percent in that encounter, a rate that he has not matched in any of his 20 games played since then. The only goal of the Klagenfurt team in this game was Lucas Lessio (13th), who had failed three minutes earlier with a penalty shot by goalie Tom McCollum. Brady Shaw (rebound on powerplay/7th) and Dario Winkler (rebound after hitting the crossbar/31st) both scored for the HCI. The Tyroleans only used five defenders in this match, three of them (Jamal Watson, Simon Bourque, Anders Krogsgaard) consequently played more than 25 minutes.
THE PERSONALITY:
At the EC-KAC, David Maier, who was last absent due to illness, returns to the squad, he will form a defensive pair with Jesper Jensen Aabo. However, the Redjackets had their next long-term injury to report during the current training week: Finn van Ee, who had just returned from the U20 A World Cup in Canada, suffered an upper-body injury, which is still being examined more comprehensively, but is already definitive will entail a break of several weeks. In addition to the center forward, there are seven other players on the list of long-term absences: Kele Steffler, Maximilian Preiml, Nick Petersen, Lukas Haudum, Thomas Koch, Johannes Bischofberger and Daniel Obersteiner.
THE COMMENT:
“Innsbruck has had an outstanding season so far, and their win rate remained high in the weeks around the turn of the year. They’re doing their job and therefore come to us in Klagenfurt with a lot of self-confidence. The strength of the HCI is certainly the attacking game, I assume that it will be a duel offensive versus defensive. Our goal will be to defend ourselves well, not to give the opponent any chances to counterattack or switch quickly. We managed to do that in the last home game against Innsbruck, but we didn’t have the patience for the game to continue, we acted too hastily and missed one opportunity after the other. Defensive consistency without having to resort to penalties and composure are the key elements in defeating teams like HC Innsbruck.” (Manuel Ganahl, striker EC-KAC).
Media info EC KAC
01/12/2023