Here we go again: Straubing wants to beat Berlin for the first time!
The Tigers are biting their teeth out: Straubing was already unable to beat the reigning champions from the capital in the regular season. Now, in the DEL playoffs, Berlin is also on course to beat the team from Lower Bavaria. Both quarter-final games have so far been won by the defending champions. It will therefore come as little surprise to few that the Eisbären Berlin are once again favored to win game three at home against the Straubing Tigers.
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Betting tips on an away win in regulation time are risky, but with this popular provider, if you win, you get almost four times your stake. Conversely, however, this also means that the bookies only give the Lower Bavarian underdogs a 25% chance of winning without overtime.
A glance at the previous results should not give the guests any hope that a prediction of a coup in the seventh attempt will come true between the Eisbären Berlin and Straubing Tigers. Nevertheless, the Lower Bavarians will not make it easy for the record champions on Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the Uber Arena.
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Eisbären Berlin – Statistics & current form
The quarter-finals of the playoffs couldn’t have gone better for the Eisbären. So far, there is hardly an expectation that Berlin has not met in the hottest ice hockey phase of the year. After the capital city team made light work of Straubing in the 5-1 series opener, the defending champions even showed their infamous comeback skills in game two.
Although the Tigers managed to score the 1-0 lead in the second period after a few powerful forays, the Berliners did not let themselves be unsettled and turned the game around to win 2-4. The final empty-net by the favored guests obscured just how close the game actually was. Overall, however, Berlin still did well.
The team of successful coach Serge Aubin presented itself so confidently that the betting providers with a German license between the Eisbären Berlin and Straubing Tigers are clearly leaning towards a third quarter-final victory for the capital city. In the two-way market, which also factors in a possible overtime, the bookmakers even go so far as to give the defending champion a victory probability of almost 70 percent!
Berlin is just as fast defensively as it is offensively
Not only the convincing results, but also the high individual quality of the Polar Bears makes the bookies’ confidence easy to understand. Berlin’s roster of top talent is long; most notably, DEL leading scorer Ty Ronning continues to perform at the top of his game. In 16 straight games, there has not been a game in which Ronning has not been involved in scoring at least once.
In addition, one aspect of the Polar Bears’ high level of game intelligence proved particularly valuable against the furious Tigers: when things get fast, Berlin is on the ball – both in attack and defense. Berlin not only heats up careless opponents with lightning-fast counterattacks, but also drives a lightning-fast backcheck that even after offensive puck losses creates one or two defensive supernumeraries.
Coupled with the highest shot efficiency in the DEL regular season (12.40 percent), the defending champions remain a dangerous opponent that could deny the Lower Bavarians a victory for the seventh time in the current season on Friday.
Straubing Tigers – Statistics & current form
Despite suffering their sixth defeat of the season against Berlin, the Tigers cannot be faulted for a lack of will. Particularly in the latest loss, which was still 2-3 until the Berlin empty-net goal with ten seconds left on the clock, the team from Lower Bavaria showed plenty of fighting spirit.
Head coach Craig Woodcroft’s team pummelled the Eisbären’s goal with a whopping 40 shots on target. However, Jonas Stettmer, who was born in Straubing, remained robust in the Berlin goal and, with a catch rate of 95 percent, only allowed the Tigers to score twice. By comparison, the favored capital city team only put 24 pucks on the opposing goal, just over half, but impressed with the necessary clinical finishing.
Will the Tigers’ power play danger be the undoing of the Polar Bears?
Since both playoff games in the quarterfinals have so far exceeded the 5.5-goal mark, the bookmakers’ odds between the Berlin Polar Bears and the Straubing Tigers imply a slightly increased probability of a high-scoring encounter. However, playoff duels are by no means always a guarantee for goal festivals, especially with the Berlin champions. It could therefore prove to be interesting to consider quotes of 2.00 at Bet365 for fewer than 5.5 goals.
At least in terms of their strength in one-on-one situations, Straubing need not fear comparison with the record champions. On the contrary: in the regular season, the Tigers were the only team in the German Ice Hockey League to be even stronger in this department than the Polar Bears, with a success rate of 52.60 percent compared to 52.27 percent for Berlin.
On the other hand, the fact that the Straubingers have plenty of room for improvement when outnumbered could prove to be a problem. While Berlin was the best power play team in the DEL during the regular season, the Tigers often found no answer to their opponents. A power play success rate of only 77.06 percent represents the fourth-worst performance in this regard.
One consolation: the Eisbären are ranked just behind them with 77.25 percent. Who will succeed in taking advantage of their opponent’s weakness in numbers and, between the Eisbären Berlin and Straubing Tigers, confirm the betting odds for a triumph in the quarter-finals of the DEL playoffs?
Eisbären Berlin – Straubing Tigers Direct comparison / H2H record
It’s a frustrating situation for Straubing: after losing all four regular-season games against Berlin, they have lost two more in the current best-of-seven series in the quarterfinals.
Although the betting odds for the playoff match between Eisbären Berlin and the Straubing Tigers signal a clear favorite role for the hosts, the team from Lower Bavaria have not looked out of their depth, especially in the most recent match. Nevertheless, the signs indicate that the capital city team will add triumph number 54 to their record of victories against Straubing (53:34).
Eisbären Berlin – Straubing Tigers Tip
Berlin is on a dominant march. Should the Eisbären also win the next two encounters against Straubing, the reigning champions will be in the semi-finals without the Tigers having managed a single victory in a total of eight encounters during the current season. Can Woodcroft’s team avert this humiliation on Friday?
Straubing did manage to cause the usually-successful Berliners problems at times in the second quarter-final game and impressed with their spirited play. Nevertheless, I rate the record champions from the capital as strong and, above all, level-headed enough to secure their seventh win of the season against the Lower Bavarians at home. Ahead of the clash between Eisbären Berlin and the Straubing Tigers, you can back a regular home win at odds of 1.72 at Bet365.