Sovereign German quarter-finals at the Ice Hockey World Championship

Frederik Tiffels (l) celebrates his goal to make it 2-0 with his teammates. © Pavel Golovkin/AP/dpa

After the fourth World Cup victory in a row, the German ice hockey team is once again in the quarterfinals. Switzerland is waiting there on Thursday. The arch-rivals have recently won three knockout games.

Tampere - Germany's ice hockey team has set itself in the mood for the explosive World Cup quarter-finals against arch-rivals Switzerland with a commanding final victory in the group. With a 5-0 (2-0, 1-0, 2-0) win against France, the selection of national coach Harold Kreis eliminated any remaining doubts about a return to the knockout round.

Alexander Ehl from Düsseldorfer EG (4th minute), Frederik Tiffels from German champions EHC Red Bull Munich (16th), top scorer John-Jason Peterka from the Buffalo Sabres (23rd), Daniel Fischbuch (44th) also from DEG and Maximilian Kastner as another Munich player (54th) scored the goals for the fourth victory in a row at the World Cup in Finland and Latvia. In Tampere, the German team was loudly celebrated by around 6000 Finnish schoolchildren for the performance.

According to the regulations of the IIHF, the selection of the German Ice Hockey Federation must now travel to Riga, Latvia. According to the DEB, however, a change in scheduling is being considered. It is also possible that the Germans will be spared the trip on Wednesday. An official confirmation of the exact quarter-final fixtures for Thursday will not be made until late Tuesday evening.

Switzerland with strong performances

Against the Swiss, who are sovereign first in Group B this year with eight NHL players, Germany had recently prevailed three times in a row in important knockout games: in the quarter-finals of the 2010 World Cup on home, in the 2018 Olympic decider on the way to the silver medal in Pyeongchang and most recently in the 2021 World Cup quarter-finals, also in Riga.

At least one of the DEB's goals has been achieved by the new national coach Kreis as successor to Toni Söderholm on his World Cup debut as head coach. Despite the unfortunate start with three narrow defeats against the top teams Sweden, Finland and USA, the quarter-finals finally succeeded with the following four victories against Denmark, Austria, Hungary and now France. It is still unclear whether this is also associated with direct Olympic qualification. Until Tuesday, the DEB had no information on which world rankings will be used as a basis for this. There will probably only be clarity about this at the end of the World Cup on the Whitsun weekend.

At the unusual time on Tuesday afternoon, the German team was wide awake in front of 8598 spectators. "One or the other is happy that it starts so early. Then you don't have to think about the game for so long," Kreis told MagentaSport before the game, calling for a confident performance and a fast, attacking game. "We have it in our own hands, and we want to keep it that way," Kreis said of the initial situation.

Unchallenged success

In fact, against the French, for whom nothing was at stake in their last World Cup game, they got off to a convincing start and achieved a completely unchallenged victory. DEG striker Ehl gave Germany the lead early on after a strong move by World Cup discovery Wojciech Stachowiak from ERC Ingolstadt. After Tiffels deflected a shot from NHL attacker Peterka into the net a good ten minutes later for his first World Cup goal of the year, the game was decided early. For two-thirds, the DEB selection was now able to play against harmless French for the prestige quarter-finals on Thursday.

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Germany's most successful World Championship point scorer to date, Peterka, gained further self-confidence with a successful fine solo effort in the second period. In the final section, it also worked with overtime goals: Fischbuch, who had previously suspended four games, and Kastner made the success even clearer. In view of the clear lead, the Germans took it a little easier in the final section, but still secured goalkeeper Mathias Niederberger from EHC Munich the first preliminary round match without conceding a goal. Dpa