Friday’s game was the Barons only home appearance during preseason. Munich started exhibition play last week with a tournament in Geneva, Switzerland, facing four other European teams owned by the Anschutz Entertainment Group. After losses to Sparta Prague (1-4) and DEL rival Berlin Eisbären (0-1 after penalty shootout), the Barons beat host Geneva Red Eagles (5-4) and Britain’s London Knights (2-0) to find themselves in a four-way tie for first place. Thanks to better head-to-head scores, Prague won the competition. Munich finished third.
Against Krefeld, the Barons started out strong but failed to capitalize on a 35-second 5-on-3 advantage.
The humid summer weather in Southern Germany created a very saturated and sultry atmosphere in the rink. Fog hovered over the ice. After play had to be stopped a couple of times during the first twenty minutes, referee Axel Sandner decided to suspend the game at the first intermission.
At this point, Krefeld was up 1-0. Midway through the first, Belorussian Sergej Stas was set up by Thomas Brandl and hammered a blueline blast past Barons starting netminder Christian Künast on the powerplay (11:08).
Trailing 1-0, the Munich Barons continued to dominate the game but could not convert their opportunities. Simon Wheeldon was stopped by young Krefeld netminder Benjamin Voigt on the doorstep. With two minutes remaining in the first, Alexander Serikow was denied by the goalpost. Mike Kennedy and youngster Andrej Strakhov blew another chance in the waning seconds of the period.
The teams decided to cap the shortened game with a penalty shootout, with ten attempts on each side. After 20 attempts, the score was tied 2-2, with Derek King and Mike Kennedy converting for Munich and Thomas Brandl und Brad Purdie scoring for Krefeld. Alexander Serikow eventually gave the Barons a 3-2 shootout win after two more rounds of penalty shots.
