Trevor Parkes is one of those hockey players who don’t care much about the aesthetics of their goals. The EHC Red Bull Munich striker usually nets the net directly in front of the opponent’s goal with a dust-off, deflection or follow-up shot, in “his office”, as he calls it. At the beginning of the season in the German Ice Hockey League (DEL), his nose was covered with several plasters because things are tough there, in Parkes’ office. Of course, that doesn’t stop someone like Parkes from going to the opponent’s goal again and again.
He did the same on Tuesday and was a decisive factor in the 5-3 derby home win against the Nuremberg Ice Tigers. The Canadian scored twice, making it 4:3 in style with a follow-up shot. This meant that the German champions won two league games in a row for the first time this season. Parkes had also scored the game-winning goal against the Löwen Frankfurt two days earlier – directly in front of the opponent’s goal, of course.
However, the EHC derby performance was not convincing in terms of play in some phases of the game. A recurring problem for the Munich team in this first season without Don Jackson behind the boards is that the opponents often come into the Munich zone with a lot of momentum and the EHC players, who have grown from a man-up under the new coach Toni Söderholm have to change to a space-oriented defense so that they are not in their desired defensive position. After the Frankfurt game on Sunday, Söderholm had already criticized some puck losses in the offensive zone, especially on the offensive blue line, “where we definitely have to play much more detailed.”
National player Nico Krämmer, one of the new members of the EHC squad, points out that they are “just finding their way”.
The dominance of target possession, which has often distinguished the EHC in recent years, was not seen so often in the first games of the season. This didn’t go unnoticed by Söderholm. We saw today that the team that runs the disc “has advantages,” he emphasized on Sunday, when his team had failed to do so several times, which meant that they had to “position themselves more passively.” In general, he concluded, there are still things that need to be improved, that is “very clear”.
National player Nico Krämmer, one of the new members of the EHC squad, pointed out that they were “just finding their way”. This also became clear in the starting third against Nuremberg on Tuesday. The EHC took a 1-0 lead thanks to Ben Street (9th), but in terms of structure, wit and flow of the game, the Franconians were superior to the champions in the first 20 minutes. Cole Maier (11th) and Ryan Stoa (19th) turned the game around with their goals in the starting third.
Nuremberg’s quick 3-1 win in the middle third by Niklas Hede confirmed this impression. But the EHC fought back quickly. Maximilian Daubner made it 2-3 just 39 seconds later, and Parkes equalized at the end of a Nuremberg penalty (28th), because the Munich team was now more aggressive and won more goals. Even without Yasin Ehliz, who was no longer on the ice in the final third, the EHC made the comeback perfect – thanks to Trevor Parkes and Maximilian Kastner’s 5:3 into the empty Ice Tigers goal (59th). Veit Oswald, who had vehemently made Parkes’ 4-3 possible, said after the game that he hoped that the performance in this final phase could be shown over 60 minutes in the future.
The Nuremberg team suffered their fourth defeat in their fourth away game of the season, conceding five goals each. The next home game awaits the Munich team on Thursday (7.30 p.m.), then it will be against the Iserlohn Roosters, who have lost five of their seven games this season and conceded eight goals against the Eisbären Berlin on Tuesday.
