Munich, Germany - With half of the regular season over, the Krefeld Pinguine are the team to beat in the German DEL. Riding on a ten-game win streak, the team has dominated its opponents at will recently, including a 8-1 rout of the Munich Barons. But despite major injury troubles, Munich managed to keep in contention.

Despite the absence of their top five defensemen , the Barons won two of three games within five days. They opened the weekend with a 5-2 road win at Iserlohn on Friday. After suffering their first-ever home loss to local rival Augsburg Sunday (1-4), the Barons rebounded by blanking the Schwenningen Wild Wings 2-0 Tuesday.

Munich in third place

Munich managed to stay among the top three teams in the DEL. The Barons are third in the league, one point ahead of the Nuremberg Ice Tigers and one behind defending champion Mannheim Adler. League leader Krefeld has a five-point cushion.

While defenders Jason Herter, Hans Lodin, Kent Fearns and Shane Peacock are still sidelined with injuries, youngster Christoph Schubert left after Sunday’s game to represent Germany in the Pool B World Junior Championships in Austria.

Schneider: Game-winner against former team

So others had to step up again. Like Andy Schneider, a natural forward and probably one of the best two-way-players in the league: “We don’t have the depth that we usually have. I’ve played about 20 games on defense this season already. I’m looking forward to getting back and playing forward.”

Tuesday, Schneider scored the game-winner against his former team Schwenningen: “There’s still a few guys that I played with over there. It’s always nice to beat your old team.”

50 seconds into the final stanza, Schneider blasted a shot past well-screened Wild Wings netminder Ian Gordon on the powerplay.

The Barons also got some great goaltending from Christian Künast, who registered his third shutout of the season. Three minutes after the lead, David Oliver added an insurance goal when he sent a beautiful wrister into the triangle.

Bitter loss in local derby

Munich had a six-game unbeaten streak snapped on Sunday when they suffered their first-ever home loss to local rival Augsburg Panthers.

With a season-record 5,217 spectators on hand at Munich’s Olympia-Eisstadion, poor scoring efficiency killed the Barons against a very confident and hard-working Panthers squad. Patrick Köppchen had the biggest opportunity when he had everyone beaten but got denied by the goalpost late in the first.

Chris Straube, a former fan favorite with Barons predecessor Hedos Munich, got Augsburg ahead six minutes into the second. Munich responded immediately, though. Mike Kennedy scored the equalizer when he wristed a shot past Panthers goalie Magnus Eriksson just 46 seconds later.

A controversial penalty to 40-year-old Edi Uvira gave Augsburg a 4-on-3- powerplay midway through the second period. Defender Jakub Ficenec didn’t hesitate and got the Panthers back in front, 2-1, after just six seconds.

Munich managed to hang in, but couldn’t find a way to get the puck past Eriksson again. With under four minutes to go, Augsburg’s Duanne Moeser put the game out of reach when he converted a set-up from Igor Maslennikov on the doorstep to make it 3-1. Igor Alexandrov capped the scoring at 4-1 on an empty-netter.

Kofler’s triumphant return to Iserlohn

Patrick Köppchen, Simon Wheeldon, Derek King and Mike Kennedy recorded multiple-point games as the Barons beat the Iserlohn Roosters 5-2 on the road last Friday. Munich took a one-goal lead into the final period. Then Manuel Kofler, who was cut by Iserlohn last month and picked up by the Barons, had his big moment when he converted a set-up from Köppchen to make it 4-2 four minutes into the third.

„He celebrated as if he’d just scored the Stanley-Cup-clinching goal,” Barons sports director Max Fedra remarked.


Iserlohn Roosters - München Barons 2-5 (0-1, 2-2, 0-2)
Scoring: 0-1 (14:10) Patrick Köppchen (Mike Kennedy, Simon Wheeldon), 1-1 (25:45) Rusty Fitzgerald (Cory Laylin, Tomas Martinec), 1-2 (33:57) Derek King (Greg Johnston - 4:4), 1-3 (36:43) Derek King (Derek Plante, David Oliver), 2-3 (39:08) Rusty Fitzgerald (Terry Hollinger, Paul Dyck - 4:4), 2-4 (53:12) Manuel Kofler (Patrick Köppchen, Peter Douris), 2-5 (56:41) Mike Kennedy (Simon Wheeldon, Alexander Serikow).
Penalties: Iserlohn 16, München 20 plus 10 misconduct for Mike Smazal.
Attendance: 2,592 (Eissporthalle, Iserlohn).

Munich Barons - Augsburg Panther 1:4 (0:0 1:2 0:2)
Scoring: 0-1 (25:14) Chris Straube (Christopher Oravec, Jakub Ficenec), 1-1 (26:03) Mike Kennedy (Simon Wheeldon, Alexander Serikow), 1-2 (27:53) Jakub Ficenec (Mickey Elick, Marc Beaucage - 4:3), 1-3 (56:25) Duanne Moeser (Igor Maslennikov, Sergej Vostrikov - 5:4), 1-4 (58:52) Igor Alexandrov - 5:6).
Penalties: München 20, Augsburg 20.
Attendance: 5,217 (Olympia-Eisstadion, Munich).

Munich Barons - Schwenninger Wild Wings 2-0 (0-0, 0-0, 2-0)
Scoring: 1-0 (40:50) Andy Schneider (Simon Wheeldon, Mike Smazal - 5:4), 2-0 (43:50) David Oliver (Derek Plante, Derek King).
Penalties: Munich 10, Schwenningen 14.
Attendance: 1,927 (Olympia-Eisstadion, Munich).