Playoffs can be soooooooo nerve racking. Especially when the refs are not doing their job. I think I’ve never seen worse refs than the ones at the Cologne Sharks – Frankfurt Lions game last night. I totally would have understood if the Sharks had picked a fight with some Lions player, because the Lions played foul without getting any penalties so often and there is only so much a hockey player can take. One of our best defense players got his second misconduct and thus won’t be allowed to play in the next game. Too bad.
It was a really tight game, which ended 1:1, but thank god the Sharks won in OT. But it was nerve-wrecking, because the Lions goalkeeper was at his best. And he is a good even on a bad day, so… It was hard work, but they made it and might be only one game away from the final. It’s going to be a busy week again :-)
This years offensive leaders (points and goals) are both playing for Iserlohn, one of the team with the smallest budget. And they are both Germans which is something special in a league where players from Canada, the US, or Czech Republic are a vital part of almost every team.
There are 56 games in a season at the german premiere hockey league (DEL) compared to 82 games in a regualar NHL season. I just have to point out the average per game.
Points
DEL: Robert Hock (Iserlohn) 1,55 (87/56)
NHL: Alexander Ovechkin (Washington) 1,46 (112/82)
Goals
NHL: Alexander Ovechkin (Washington) 0,792 (65/82)
DEL: Michael Wolf (Iserlohn) 0,786 (44/56)
And Ovechkin is a league of his own in the NHL, so the performance of Hock and Wolf can’t be valued enough. I so hope that both of them will be on Team Germany in Halifax together. They are just like a well oiled machine and I don’t know how well Wolf will be playing with another center. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
Just for the record: The best player in Cologne was Ivan Ciernik with 66 points and 38 goals. And even he is a league of his own in that team.