Munich, Germany - While Jochen Hecht had another quiet night with the Mannheim Adler, fellow NHL winger Marco Sturm celebrated a glorious return to the Deutsche Eishockey Liga (DEL) Sunday. Sturm led the way with two power-play goals as ERC Ingolstadt routed the highly touted Berlin Eisbären. Meanwhile, Hans Zach's Kölner Haie find themselves on top of the table after a perfect 2-0 start.

Haie improve to 2-0, spoil Freezers' season opener

Eduard Lewandowski and Stephané Julien each recorded a goal and an assist as the Kölner Haie skated to a 4-2 (2-0, 1-1, 1-1) home win over the Hamburg Freezers. In a tight game in front of 13,140 spectators at KölnArena, the Haie jumped out to an early 2-0 lead on goals by Lewandowski and Jean-Yves Roy. Lewandowski scored just 88 seconds into the contest, taking advantage of a Freezer miscue on defense. Roy shoved the puck through heavy traffic past Boris Rousson to double the lead with his third tally of the young season midway through the opening period. Hamburg recovered and got on the scoreboard early in the second on a mighty slapshot by defender Shane Peacock. Jeremy Adduono restored the two-goal lead, making it 3-1 on a fine solo effort midway through the middle frame. The Freezers managed to hang in there, killing off a five-minute major to Nils Antons early in the third. Antons also received a game misconduct after throwing his elbow into the face of Sebastian Furchner, who was able to return after receiving three stitches above his eyebrow. Freezers head coach Dave King pulled Rousson with over two minutes left in regulation and got rewarded when Craig Johnston put the Freezers within a goal only seconds later. But Julien sealed the Haie win, beating Rousson on the breakaway 59 seconds from the final horn.

Ingolstadt thrashes Berlin

Marco Sturm led the way with two power-play goals and defenseman Chris Armstrong recorded three assists as ERC Ingolstadt opened the season with an impressive 5-0 (1-0, 1-0, 3-0) rout of the Berlin Eisbären. However the game was not as lopsided as the score might indicate. Berlin even outshot Ingolstadt 31-29 but failed to get the puck past a magnificent Jimmy Waite, who recorded his 18th career DEL shutout. Ingolstadt opened the scoring on a 5-on-3 power-play opportunity late in the first when Sturm deflected a shot from Andy McDonald past Oliver Jonas. The hosts doubled the lead on a shorthander midway through the second period. Eisbären defenseman Micki DuPont mishandled the puck at the blueline, and Doug Ast sent Martin Jiranek on a breakaway, who made it 2-0 on a nifty backhand move on Jonas. The floodgates opened early in the third. Just seconds after a penalty to Florian Busch expired, Jakub Ficenec made it 3-0, going top-shelf with a trademark blast from between the hashmarks. Newly signed Markus Schröder scored his first goal for Ingolstadt when Andi Loth's diagonal feed from the right boards found him uncovered near the left goal post. A minute later, Sturm capped the scoring at 5-0 with his second power-play goal of the night with 10:03 to go.

"That was exactly the start we were looking for," said Sturm, "beating the best team in the league 5-0. I think we have a terrific group. I hope we can go on like this."

Said ERC head coach Ron Kennedy, "we made a step into the right direction tonight. But this is not gonna happen every night. I think this was not a 5-0 game. But ok, we scored five times and Berlin didn't. Sturm and Andy McDonald add a lot of speed to this team. Both played key roles in tonight's win."

"There wasn't that much of a difference between our 3-2 win on Friday (over Frankfurt) and tonight's 5-0 loss", said Eisbären head coach Pierre Pagé. "Ingolstadt won most of the one-on-one battles. We had lots of scoring opportunities, but failed to convert."

Elsewhere in the DEL on Sunday

Steve Brulé's short-handed goal at 1:09 of the third lifted the Krefeld Pinguine to a 3-2 (2-2, 0-0, 1-0) road win over the DEG Metro Stars. Düsseldorf outshot Krefeld 39-22. Pinguine backup Christian Rohde, who started in place of the injured No.1 netminder Robert Müller, recorded 37 saves. Brulé had two goals on the night. Krefeld's first goal was also scored short-handed by Paul Dyck. Alexander Sulzer (PP) and Klaus Kathan scored for Düsseldorf. Both teams have a 1-1 record.

Dwayne Norris' goal at 9:50 of the opening period went down as the game winner as defending champion Frankfurt Lions recorded its first win of the season, downing the Hannover Scorpions 3-1 (2-1, 1-0, 0-0) at home. Stephane Robidas and Marc Beaucage also scored for Frankfurt while defenseman Dan Lambert had Hanover's only goal. Both teams are 1-1.

The Kassel Huskies are at the bottom of the table after starting the season with back-to-back losses. They rallied from an early 3-0 deficit but came up short again in their home opener, losing 5-3 (0-3, 3-2, 0-0) to the Iserlohn Roosters. Norwegian Martin Knold led the Roosters with a pair of power-play tallies. Matt Higgins (PP), Rhett Gordon and Erich Goldmann (PP) also scored for Iserlohn while Ted Drury (PP), Dany Bousquet and Gert Acker (PP) tallied for Kassel.

Expansion team Grizzly Adams Wolfsburg came up only a few minutes shy of its first DEL win. Wolfsburg at least received a point for a regulation tie after squandering a 2-0 lead against the Nürnberg Ice Tigers, who prevailed 3-2 (0-1, 0-1, 2-0, 1-0) after penalty shootout. Wolfsburg was up 2-0 after two periods after goals from Ivan Ciernik and Rainer Suchan, but Nuremberg put on a third-period rally, tying the score on back-to-back goals from Sean Tallaire, the game-tying score coming with just 2:35 remaining. Tallaire also got credit for the game-winning shot in the penalty shootout.

The Mannheim Adler also needed a shootout decision to down the Augsburger Panther on the road, 2-1 (0-1, 0-0, 1-0, 1-0). Augsburg drew first blood when Francois Methot scored late in the first. Christoph Ullmann's goal at 11.31 of the third sent the contest into the shootout. Mannheim's Eric Healey converted the game-winning shot.