Red Bulls - Linz 5:1

The empire struck back against the Black Wings!

Linz goalie Tirronen was under constant fire(Bild: Tröster Andreas)

Heavy setback for the Black Wings in the quarter-final series: After the 2:3 in Linz, ice hockey champions Salzburg rolled over the Steel Cities 5:1 in game 3 at home in the Volksgarten! "A very bitter evening," said visiting coach Philipp Lukas, whose team has home ice again on Saturday.

When Black Wings forward Julian Pusnik deflected a shot in the power play to make it 1-2 (22'), there was a glimmer of hope! "Equalizer", chanted the 700 Linz fans who had travelled to Salzburg after a horror start: After a Stajnoch foul on Raffl, Bourke converted the penalty after 51 seconds and Mario Huber made it 2:0 (6'). "You simply can't afford a start like that here," Linz coach Phil Lukas was to say later.

Horror start for Linz
His team was unable to keep up with the pace of Austria's ice hockey champions from then on, was at times badly hemmed in by the storming Bulls, ran into major penalty problems and thus came under even more pressure. "We simply took too many penalties," nodded striker Marco Brucker. "We had no discipline and no consistency inside, didn't find our game and couldn't match Salzburg's energy. A very bitter evening," Lukas summed up.

Salzburg captain Raffl scored twice in the 5:1 win(Bild: Hannes Draxler)

"It was simply not enough"
His EHC was 1:3 down through Raffl (36'), and Genoway's goal to make it 1:4 (45') sealed the deal. Raffl made the final score 1:5 from Linz's point of view (55'). "You can't lose by that much, we just didn't do enough throughout the game," said goalscorer Pusnik after the heavy defeat at the Red Bulls.

Rasmus Tirronen was poor(Bild: Hannes Draxler)

KAC won 7:0
The empire struck back impressively two days after the 3-2 defeat in Linz. "But it was just one game, now we'll try to strike again at home," announced Pusnik ahead of Game 4, in which the EHC can level the quarter-final series again on Saturday. Vorarlberg is also trailing 1:2 because the KAC rolled over the Pioneers 7:0! VSV, meanwhile, are already facing the end of the season after their 1:6 loss in Bolzano.