Gladiators heat up the Devils

Created: 01/13/2023, 22:22

By: Wolfgang Krzizok

Ulm's goalkeeper David Heckenberger is left behind.

After a dream pass from Philipp Michl (not in the photo), Daniel Krzizok (l.) scores to make it 3-0 for Erding.

Tomas Plihal (right) observes the scene.

© Christian Riedel

The Erding Gladiators have almost bought their ticket for the championship round.

Based on an incredibly strong first third, team manager Felix Schütz's team deservedly defeated VfE Ulm/Neu-Ulm 6:1 (4:0, 1:1, 1:0) on Friday evening.

Erding – Athletes, and especially ice hockey players, are considered very superstitious.

So it was exciting to see who would turn out to be an unlucky day on Friday the 13th.

Erding got off to a better start, because after just 80 seconds defender Paul Wallek sank the puck into the Devils' goal to make it 1-0.

But the guests were relatively unimpressed.

Although the Gladiators were optically superior, the Ulm team kept putting needlesticks, so that Erding's goalkeeper Christoph Schedlbauer was by no means idle.

After that, the guests conceded two penalties.

They survived the first one with no problems.

At the second Dominik Synek still had three seconds to serve, when Daniel Krzizok poked the puck into the net to make it 2-0 (12th).

VfE keeper David Heckenberger had no chance.

Five minutes later, the Gladiators were outnumbered again, and Krzizok converted a sensational “no-look” pass from Philipp Michl to make it 3-0.

And when Wallek smacked in a slap shot to make it 4-0 just 25 seconds later, Ulm's coach Martin Jainz called a time-out.

After a furious first third, the Gladiators were bid farewell by the fans with applause.

But the Devils were far from giving up.

They kept the game open and in the 25th minute Stefan Rodrigues scored to make it 4-1.

The guests continued to play boldly forward, and now the Erdinger wobbled a bit.

But then Mark Waldhausen was through and heaved the hard rubber disc into the Devils goal to make it 5:1 (36th).

Although the game was actually over, the guests didn't give up, continued to fight undeterred and recorded a shot from the post by Johannes Scheitle.

Suddenly, however, the game, which had been extremely fair until then, became tougher, triggered by a nasty check by Rodrigues against Roni Rukajärvi, whereupon the Erdinger defender was injured in the dressing room and the Ulm player had to go to the penalty box for five minutes.

Not much happened after that, except for Florian Zimmermann's 6:1 after great preliminary work by Erik Modlmayr (58th).

And so, finally, Friday the 13th was a bad day for the Devils.

statistics

Goals/assists: 1:0 (2nd) Wallek (Busch, Zimmermann), 2:0 (12th) Krzizok (Plihal, Waldhausen/5-4), 3:0 (17th) Krzizok (Michl, Rukajärvi/5 -4), 4: 0 (18th) Wallek (Busch, Zimmermann), 4: 1 (25th) Rodrigues (Döring, Anwander), 5: 1 (36th) Waldhausen (Michl, Lorenz), 6: 1 ( 58.) Zimmermann (Modlmayr, Maier) - Spectators: 700 - HSR: Christoph Ober, Rupert Stenzel - Penalty minutes: Erding 12, Ulm/Neu-Ulm 14 + 5 (Rodrigues) + 5 + playing time (Podesva)