On Sunday the Playoffs starts

For the first time ever EC Red Bull Salzburg and Moser Medical Graz99ers face in the Playoffs on Sunday! The Mozart Citizens are best known in the Playoffs, they play 2017 already their twelvth Playoff in a row. Six times the Red Bulls got the title, lately twice in a row, what means they won their last six Playoff-series. Three times in a row so far no club won the title in Erste Bank Eishockey Liga. The 99ers on the other side play their ninth Play-off in Austrians highest League, so far the Styrians never survived the first round. For the Mur Citizens it is the first Playoff since 2012/13. The series the two teams start on Sunday at Salzburg. There the 99ers won last time on November 16th 2012 or 1.562 days ago! Since that day nine times in a row Salzburg had the better end at home! The Red Bulls lately also were on Fire, won their last three games and scored in 180 minutes 21 goals. „Now starts the best time of the season. Lately we got better and better, each line is dangerous“, knows Salzburgs Headcoach Greg Poss. Graz won lately two games in a row and the Qualification Round had already Playoff-character for the Mur Citizens. „Salzburg is the reigning Champion, the best team of the last year. They are the favorite. We expecting a difficult task. Playing good defense in the neutral zone against an offensive team from Salzburg can be a key!“, knows Head Coach Doug Mason, who extended his contract at Graz until 2018/19. The best scorers of their team are John Hughes (RBS) with 32 goals and 33 Assists and Oliver Setzinger (G99) with 20 goals and 41 Assists. Besides John Hughes is also the best goal-scorer of his team and the Erste Bank Eishockey Liga. Kyle Beach scored so far the most goals for Graz (30). In a fan survey on the Facebook side of Erste Bank Eishockey Liga 76% of the people think, that the Red Bulls will make the next round. Four wins are necessary to reach the next round.

 

For the third time in a row already EHC LIWEST Black Wings Linz and HCB Südtirol Alperia will face in the Quarterfinals, starting on Sunday. In the first two series the Upper Austrians won the first game and then also the series 4:3 or 4:2 and made it into the semifinals. On Sunday, exactly one year ago, the Black Wings started the Best-of-seven-Quarterfinals at Bozen with a 5:3-win. This season the Play-off-clash between this two teams starts, like 2014/15, in Linz. Both teams had a bad run in February so far, won just one from six games. The Austrians lately lost four games in a row, inter alia one week ago at Bozen. But the Playoff starts for the two opponents at Linz. The home-advantage could make the difference in this series: 18 times the two clubs meet in Erste Bank Eishockey Liga since the 2013/14-season so far at Linz, 14 times the Steel Citizens left the home-ice as the winner in the end. Besides the Italians have to fight against a bad run on the road: Alexander Egger and Company lost so far all nine road-games in the year 2017, inter alia twice at Linz in January. Sunday will show, which team will start better into the Playoffs. The team, that has four wins first makes the semifinals. Under the lead of Head Coach Rob Daum the Linzer so far always reached the second Play-off-round, 2012 the Canadian coached the Black WIngs even to the title. In a fan survey on the Facebook side of Erste Bank Eishockey Liga 63% of all people believe, that the Black Wings make the next round. But Linz Manager Christian Perthaler warns: „Bozen is the club, which the Top 3 didn‘t pick and in the last two years we always had big fights.“ „In the Playoffs it starts at zero again. We always had a team, that fights“, knows HCB Team Manager Georg Knoll.

At the Special Teams the Austrians are ahead in comparison with the Foxes:  The Black Wings have the best Power Play (efficiency: 23,4%) and also Penalty Killing (efficiency: 86%). Bozen is on place 6 in the Power Play ranking with an efficiency of 18.8% and has with an efficiency of 76,1% the worst Penalty Killing of all, who made it into the Playoff. The Pointbest player is from Linz Dan DaSilva with 70 points (31G/39A) and from Bozen Brodie Reid with 48 points (26G/22A). Reid also scored the most goals for his team. The best goal-scorer from the Black Wings is  the Austrian Brian Lebler with 32 goals.

 

For the second time in the Erste Bank Eishockey Liga history from Sunday on EC-KAC and HC Orli Znojmo will face in the Quarterfinals. 2014/15 the Carinthians won the series 4:1. In those days there were four road-wins, inter alia Klagenfurt was successful in the first clash at Znojmo. In this season the two teams start the Playoff on Sunday at Klagenfurt. Both teams are in a good shape right before the start of the Post Season: Klagenfurt won so far all six games in February. Lately David Madlener and Co. played strong defense, received totally just three goals in their last three games, while scoring 14 goals! „We picked with Znojmo a team, with that we had some big fights in the last years. Most of the time we had the better end. We want to concentrate on our strengthen furthermore“, reported  KAC Sport Manager Dieter Kalt. So far the two clubs meet in Erste Bank Eishockey Liga 29 times, 20 games were won by the Austrians. This week Klagenfurt extended the contracts with goalie David Madlener, defenseman Christoph Duller and forward Johannes Bischofberger until end of 2018/19-season.

At Znojmo Colton Yellow Horn is one of the key-players. The Canadian, who was MVP last season, scored for the Czechs since his return from Pilsen 42 points (19T/23A) from 38 games already. This week he extended his contract at Znojmo already for the 2017/18-season. „Colton is a very important player for us, this he shows in each game. We are happy, he stays here also next year.“, reported  Znojmos Sportmanager Rostislav Docekal. In Sport the Red Eagles got better and better since Roman Simicek took over as the Head Coach. The Czechs have already a Play-off-subscription, they made the Post Season in all six years they partcipate in Erste Bank Eishockey Liga. After four times finishing the season after the Quarterfinals, the Red Eagles made it 2015/16 into the finals. To Klagenfurt the Vice-Champion travels with good memories, there they won two from the last three clashes, inter alia the last on December 2nd 2016 4:2. Besides Znojmo won four from their last five games. „Regular Season and Playoff are two different things. It starts now at zero again, often underdogs surprise. We want to show that we can play ice hockey“, reported Znojmos Headcoach Roman Simicek. Klagenfurt’s pointbest player is Jamie Lundmark with 51 points (26G/25A), while David Bartos (18G/27A) collected the most points for the Czechs. Then follows already Colton Yellow Horn with 42 points. In a fan survey on the Facebook side of Erste Bank Eishockey Liga 56% of all people think, that EC-KAC makes it into the semifinals.

 

UPC Vienna Capitals and HC TWK Innsbruck „Die Haie“ are ready for the Play-offs. In the season-clash the Caps are leading 5:1. But the Sharks got their only win in the middle of November 2016 at Vienna, winning after a goal-festival with 9:7. The two clubs meet already 2007/08 in a Quarterfinal: In those days the Caps sweeped the Sharks 3:0. But take attention: In the last two years the Caps lost their Play-off-opener against EC VSV and before in Szekesfehervar. „We must play solid defense, intense, with speed and take quick shots“, knows forward Caps-forward Andreas Nödl. Lately Vienna won four times in a row at home and received totally just four goals in 240 minutes. The Caps best scorer is Riley Holzapfel with 53 points. HC TWK Innsbruck „Die Haie“ make their first Play-off-game since March 1st 2009. Totally the Tyroleans played five Playoff-series so far in Erste Bank Eishockey Liga (since 2003/04), all they lost and they also always were defeated in the first match of each series. On Sunday the Sharks start the Play-offs at Vienna. There they won in 2016/17-once. Besides they had a close game there on Tuesday. „We are happy about the way we played lately and we are ready“, reported HCI-Headcoach Rob Pallin. With Fehervar AV19 the US-American 2014/15 made Vienna problems. The Hungarians got a 2:0-lead in the Play-off-Quarterfinals, but then lost 2:4. In Vienna Tyler Spurgeon and Co. also fight against their bad run on the road, lately the lost six road-games in a row. HCI‘s best scorer is John Lammers. With goalie JP Lamoureux (Vienna) and Mario Lamoureux (HCI) also two brothers face in this series. In a fan survey on the Facebook side of Erste Bank Eishockey Liga 68% see Vienna in the semifinals.

 

In the Playoffs there is no Shootout anymore! If a game is draw after 60 minutes, then it follows an „Endless-Overtime", thet means it follows a "Sudden Death" until the first goal is scored with Overtimes to 20 minutes and breaks. The longest game in Erste Bank Eishockey League so far was played between EC VSV and EC Red Bull Salzburg in the Quarterfinals 2014/15 and took 111:39 minutes (gross: 4:20 hours), then John Hughes scored the 2:1 Game Winner for the Red Bulls.
All Playoff-series are played best of seven, that means four wins are necessary to make it into the next round.

 

Sun, 26.02.2017: EC Red Bull Salzburg (2) – Moser Medical Graz99ers (7) - 17:00, ServusTV live
Referees: SMETANA, ZRNIC, Kaspar, Zgonc.

Sun, 26.02.2017: UPC Vienna Capitals (1) – HC TWK Innsbruck „Die Haie“ (5) - 17:30
Referees: M. NIKOLIC, STOLC, Pardatscher, Seewald.

Referees: GRUBER, K. NIKOLIC, Rakovic, Schauer.

Sun, 26.02.2017: EHC LIWEST Black Wings Linz (4) – HCB Südtirol Alperia (6) - 18:30, SKY live
Referees: LEMELIN, SIEGEL, Nothegger, Verworner.