After missing last year’s season, Adler Mannheim returned to the CHL as an ambitious club determined to go as far as possible and after topping a very tough Group F that included some big names such as Djurgården Stockholm and the Vienna Capitals, they were a feared opponent in the playoffs draw. “It was great to qualify and play against some of the best teams in Europe. We went to the playoffs from top spot in the Group Stage and showed our superiority in games.” said experienced Mannheim forward David Wolf who has already featured in three CHL seasons with die Adler.

Yet sadly, their journey ended unexpectedly early in the Round of 16 after an aggregate 1-2 defeat to Mountfield HK. “Mountfield are a very good Czech team with a strong goalkeeper” said 30-year-old Wolf mentioning Mountifield’s star of the night – Marek Mazanec, who saved an astonishing 45 shots over the two legs letting only a single shot into his net.

“We had a lot of chances and played a very good first period. Our opponent played extremely defensively so we spent a lot of time in the offensive zone” said Wolf “we wanted to score the first goal early into the game”. But the exact opposite ended up happening as die Adler who were already one goal down from the first leg in the Czech Republic, conceded first and gave Mountfield a two-goal buffer.

And it all seemed to go downhill from there, as die Adler failed to up the pressure after conceding – “The second period wasn’t our game; we didn’t take enough shots. In the final period we played harder in the offensive zone and tried to take more shots. When Phil Hungerecker finally scored, we upped the pressure for the last minutes”. Die Adler even had a two-minute powerplay towards the end of the match, but even with an empty net and six offensive players on the ice they failed to score that much needed series-tying goal.