Munich, Germany - Obviously relieved by the sacking of Canadian head coach Paulin Bordeleau 24 hours earlier, the struggling Hannover Scorpions were firing on all cylinders Sunday night, thrashing the last-place Schwenninger Wild Wings 8-1. Ingolstadt’s Olle Öst, who has one of Hannover’s fiercest rivals on an impressive run, will assume coaching duties in Hannover next season. While the Kölner Haie saw another episode added to their shootout jinx, Berlin extended its lead on top of the table behind a hot performance from goalie Richard Shulmistra.

Hannover already made its second coaching change of the season. After dismissing Swede Christer Abrahamsson in October, the Scorpions fired his replacement Paulin Bordeleau Saturday. Under Bordeleau’s reign, the Scorpions slid from playoff contention into the heated battle against relegation, losing 20 out of 30 games. Assistant Siggi Reiss and Mats Weiderhal of Swedish Elitserien club Linköping will share head coaching duties for the remainder of the season. Öst, who has posted a x-x record with ERC Ingolstadt since his January arrival, will assume reigns in Hannover next season – his second stint with the Scorpions. In 2000-01 he turned a losing season around and led the team into the semifinals, the biggest success in franchise history.

Soccio scores hat trick

The coaching change obviously sparked the Scorpions big-time. Led by three goals from Len Soccio, who also recorded an assist, Hannover virtually exploded Sunday night, hammering the Schwenninger Wild Wings 8-1 (4-1, 1-0, 3-0) on home ice. Goals from Soccio and Todd Hawkins (powerplay), who also had a four-point night, gave the Scorpions a 2-0 lead just three minutes into the contest. Fredrik Öberg (powerplay) and Todd Simon doubled the lead to 4-0 just past the midway point of the first period. The DEL’s all-time leading scorer Mike Bullard came up with Schwenningen’s only goal late in the first. With the pace slowing down a little, Jakob Karlsson added a goal in the middle frame. Back-to-back third-period tallies from Soccio and a goal from Sebastian Klenner capped the 8-1 rout.

Shulmistra shuts out Nürnberg, Hamburg wins rough battle

Behind solid netminding from Richard Shulmista and an effective neutral-zone trap, the Berlin Eisbären blanked the Nürnberg Ice Tigers 3-0 (0-0, 1-0, 2-0) on the road. After posting an impressive nine-game win streak in January, Nürnberg has lost twice at home and is 1-2 since the All-Star break. The Tigers dominated the game for almost two periods but did not manage to put the puck past Berlin’s goalie. Scores from defenseman John Gruden and Florian Keller shortly before and after the second intermission put Berlin in control. Kelly Fairchild’s tally with 9:49 made it 3-0 in favor of the Eisbären.

With six games left in the regular season, the Eisbären (96 points) are five points ahead of the second-place Kölner Haie (91), who got downed on home ice by the Hamburg Freezers after penalty shootout. Andy Schneider converted the winning attempt to give the Freezers a 3-2 (1-1, 1-1, 0-0, 1-0) edge in a very rough game. Haie defender Darcy Werenka opened the scoring, beating Freezers netminder Boris Rousson with a wrist shot through traffic six minutes in. Hamburg came right back: Bobby House scored his team-leading 22nd goal of the season to tie the score at 1-1 on the power-play. The Freezers took a 2-1 lead in the second, when Ted Drury took his own rebound and shot it over Haie goalie Chris Rogles. The game then had to be interrupted for about ten minutes when several players got into fisticuffs after an altercation between Rousson and Alex Hicks on a 5-on-3 powerplay opportunity for the Haie. Tino Boos scored in the last minute of the second to tie the game at 2-2. Thanks to good goaltending at both ends, there was no scoring in the third period.

With two games in hand, the win gives Hamburg (65) a three-point edge over the Iserlohn Roosters (62), who rallied back from a 2-0 deficit in Augsburg, but were downed by the Panther 3-2 (0-0, 2-2, 0-0, 1-0) after penalty shootout. Augsburg jumped out to a 2-0 second-period lead behind tallies from defender Christian Lukes and All-Star forward Philippe Audet, but goals from Jason Cipolla and Andrej Podkonicky evened the score later in the period. Veteran Sergej Vostrikov scored the game-winning shot for Augsburg in the extra session.

Ingolstadt shocks Mannheim

With Ingolstadt (53 points) continuing to roll, Frankfurt (58), Hannover (56) and Augsburg (56) are still in danger of slipping to 13th place and playing a best-of-seven relegation series against the last-place Schwenninger Wild Wings (37).

Dan Lambert scored a pair of goals as the Krefeld Pinguine (73) skated to a 3-1 (1-0, 1-0, 1-1) win over the Frankfurt Lions. Krefeld has won three straight since the All-Star break.

Meanwhile, ERC Ingolstadt continued its impressive run, improving its record to 3-0 since the All-Star break and 7-3 since Olle Öst’s head coaching debut. Behind hot goaltending from Canadian Mike Bales, Ingolstadt stunned the third-place Mannheim Adler on the road, 2-1 (1-1, 1-0, 0-0). Mannheim started out well: Mike Kennedy put the Adler up 1-0 on a two-man advantage just 1:54 into the tilt. But Ingolstadt responded right away: Shayne Toporowski tied the score on a powerplay tally just four minutes later. Mannheim failed to find its rhythm, the odd game-winning goal epitomized their sluggishness. Unchallenged, Adler captain Stefan Ustorf lost control of the puck near his own net and the puck slid past surprised goalie Dimitri Pätzold across the goal line. Terry Campbell got credit for the goal six minutes into the middle frame.

Mannheim (86) is only a point ahead of the fourth-place DEG Metro Stars (85), who downed the Kassel Huskies 3-2 (1-1, 0-1, 1-0, 1-0) after penalty shootout. Defenseman Tommy Jakobsen scored the game-winning shot for Düsseldorf.