Another coup against the Champion
November, 13th 2015 | A Story by cdmediateam | Photos: GEPA Pictures.
Second encounter with last year’s EBEL-Champion, and for the second time the Dornbirner Eishockey Club was dominating the EC Red Bull Salzburg. The Bulldogs won 4:0, and ran rings around the league’s leader.
It was the third time in club history that the Dornbirn Bulldogs had to report for duty on a Friday, the 13th in the Erste Bank Eishockey Liga. Just like against the Carinthian traditional teams VSV and KAC, facing the Red Bulls from Salzburg on Friday, the 13th 2015 brought luck to the Bulldogs.
An early powerplay by the energetic table-toppers stretched the home team to the limit. But the Bulldogs’ defense stood up to the pressure, and shortly after in their first powerplay the team of DEC Head Coach Dave MacQueen got to celebrate their first goal. Alexander Cijan was sitting in the box for merely five seconds, when Drew MacKenzie (8./pp1) shot the 1:0. From then on whatever the guests were trying, seemed to be coming to a dead end. Dornbirn however displayed the fireworks in front of their fans.
Second shutout for Hardy
At the beginning of the second period Jonathan D’Aversa (21.) took off, and surprised Luka Gracnar for the second time on this evening, extending the lead to 2:0. Salzburg gave it everything, and despite building momentum, they didn’t even manage to turn a powerplay into tangible reward. Bulls captain Matthias Trattnig and his teammates literally bombarded DEC goalie Florian Hardy for a while, but the latter was able to prevent his team from damage. The Bulldogs’ forwards on the other side did a better job. James Livingston (31./pp1) made for the second powerplay goal of the night by deflecting a Greentree-shot. The Champion had enough, running after the puck for nothing all night long. The Bulldogs however finished their job masterfully. With five minutes left in the game, Ratushny replaced Salzburg’s goalie by a sixth skater. That ended up being of no avail. Instead, Jamie Arniel (56./en) took care of the uncontested 4:0-Bulldogs-victory — this season’s second shutout for the Bulldogs-goalie.
“It’s a great win. The shutout was possible only because the whole team played good. It’s a great feeling to beat the top team of this league.” — DEC Keeper Florian Hardy.
