The red jackets traveled to the Slovenian capital with a lot of self-confidence, the first and sovereign win of the season in Vienna was responsible for this. Lukas Haudum and Daniel Obersteiner, who were recently ill, returned to the squad. Head coach Petri Matikainen didn’t change much in the attacking lines compared to Friday’s game. Haudum took the position of Samuel Witting in the third line of attack, Linzer played as a center forward and his wings were Nick Petersen and Finn van Ee. After the first third, Obersteiner replaced Luka Gomboc, who was playing with Thomas Koch and Matt Fraser.
The hosts got off to a better start, putting pressure on KAC with an aggressive forecheck, so a controlled game from the defensive zone was not easy for the Klagenfurt team. After a promising opportunity for the red jackets through Paul Postma, the Slovenians upped the ante. First, Jesper Jensen-Aabo lost the disc without any pressure, his Danish compatriot Sebastian Dahm corrected the mistake. Then Christopher Dodero duped the entire KAC defense, leaving the keeper no chance of defence. Shortly before the third break, Haudum marched into the attacking zone with a lot of speed and served Petersen with an exemplary template, who didn’t miss this opportunity.
Immediately following the third break, KAC increased the score to 2:1. Rok Tičar played back to the blue line to Postma, who put his dreaded long shot into the net. After a tough but fair check, Niki Kraus had to go to the penalty box, and the goal was scored by Klagenfurt. Thomas Koch completed a two-on-one counterattack with a remarkable hook to make it 3:1 with a man down. After that, Klagenfurt controlled what was happening and created good opportunities, but Zan Us in the Laibacher box prevented his team from falling behind.
In the final section, the home side regained hope when Nik Simsic scored the goal. The storm formation with Dodero, Rok Kapel and Simsic caused the people from Klagenfurt several times great difficulties due to their high skating quality and technical sophistication. With the second goal from Petersen, who came from the penalty box and was once more optimally passed by Haudum, KAC restored the double lead. However, Pance and Co still didn’t admit defeat, from the extremely weak referees, who only sent Klagenfurt to the penalty box in the 60 minutes, they also got a 5:3 majority. But as in Vienna, the Rotjacken remained twice outnumbered without conceding a goal and once more delivered a great fighting performance. Supported by an outstanding Dahm, it was a deserved 4:2 win in the end.
