I was too tired to post anything after I finished watching the game yesterday and I did not take any notes so this is from memory only.
Another huge problem is that I did not have a roster with all the numbers. They showed a line up with numbers at the start of the game, but I don't know how reliable that was, because there were players on the ice with numbers that were not listed.
There are some players I am familiar enough with that I recognised them easily (Willhöft, Händel, Lewandowski, Schneider), but with some others I cannot be entirely sure.
Overall I thought the team played ok. They started ot pretty good and for long stretches were equal to the Czechs. They even opened the scoring with Lewandowski bagning home a beautiful pass by Willhöft from behind the goal line.
As the game went on the Czechs became, for the lack of a better term, more dominant, but the Germans continued to be dangerous and even if Czechia carried most of the play, especially in the second half of the game, it never felt like our team was outmatched.
They even took the lead again in the second period when Schneider converted a penalty shot. Unfortunately the lead did not last long and by the end of the second period the Czechs had taken the lead 3-2.
They added two more goals in the third when they really dominated the play in part because they spend a lot of it on the power play. And while our penalty kill was not very good overall, on one instance Willhöft pressured the defenseman at the blueline blocked his shot/pass and scored shorthanded on the breakaway.
Goalie:
I thought Stuhrmann did a solid job in goal. He made some nice saves, and his rebound control was fairly good.
Defense:
One of the worst games I have seen Carlos Händel play and he was still not terrible. Nobody on defense really stood out in a good way, also not in a bad way, although I would say there was slightly more bad than good from most of our defensemen. Kose and Hempel had a couple of nice plays offensively, Hempel also defensively. Bleicher was mostly invisible, which is not a bad thing.
Forwards:
I already mentioned Willhöft who, reminds me a little bit of Tim Stützle, not that I think he will be anywhere near that good, it's just the way he seems to find the puck, or the puck finds him out there, and how he just makes the game his. He played very strong 5-on-5 and shorthanded, on the power play the whole team sucked.
Lewandowski showed some of traits we did not really see at the Hlinka a few days earlier. He protected the puck well, made some nice passes and I thought his stickhandling looked improved from last season. Playing with Willhöft certainly helped.
Schneider was a mixed bag for me, on one hand he showed why he scores so many goals in juniors, he could turn into a decent power forward that scores around the net, in the mold of David Wolf. On the other hand I do question his hockey sense a bit, he did not recognise some obvious plays to make out there that would have resulted in almost certain goals.
Other forwards that I thought were noticeable, were Nikita Kessler, Sebastian Zwickl and Karl Pohle. Another guy I noticed a lot both in a good and a bad way was Pepino Langmeier. He fell down quite a bit, but he also was very engaged and tried to make things happen. Unfortunately that resulted multiple times in him trying to go 1-on-3 or 1-on-4, so he was basically taking on the entire Czech team. On the plus side, when he did so he did not lose the puck immediately, but managed to hold on for a bit and almost make a play to a teammate. He has some puck protection and stickhandling skill, but his decision making was not looking too good.
Overall I have to say our kids lack awareness out there and with that I mean everyone, including Willhöft and Lewandowski. At least three times (once it was Schneider, once it was Willhöft, but I can't remember the third one) they made risky and plainly stupid plays that resulted in turnovers as their linemates (including the defensemen) were changing, giving the Czechs free breakaways, one of which resulted in a goal against.
When your entire group has been on the ice too long and they all need a change, you cannot go and try dekeing and dangling your way through the opposing defense, especially in the 2nd period when you have the long change.
Looking forward to the rest of the games, although I am not sure when I will be able to watch each game, since I am fairly busy with both work and in my free time. I am getting back into video games in my old age with Baldur's Gate 3. It has been quite a while since I played a new game except for a couple of smaller ones that did not take up a lot of time.
