BREMERHAVEN – Host club Fischtown Pinguins Bremerhaven started the 2015 IIHF Continental Cup Super Final with a win thanks to the late game winner from captain Marian Dejdar to beat Yertis Pavlodar 5-4. Neman Grodno blanked the Angers Ducs 5-0 in the early game.

Fischtown Pinguins Bremerhaven – Yertis Pavlodar 5-4 (1-2, 2-0, 2-2) Video

In a tight game with the lead changing back and forth several times the German hosts had the better end as Marian Dejdar scored the 5-4 game-winning goal with 80 seconds left in regulation time.

“It’s a super feeling. It was pretty tight in the end. We had the lead but they came back. Now we’ll enjoy the win for some minutes and then get ready for the next game,” Dejdar said.

Yertis Pavlodar may have been considered favourite in the game after a 3-2 preliminary-round win against the Germans but at 1:55 it was Jaroslav Hafenrichter, who capitalized on the game’s first power play to open the scoring for the Fischtown Pinguins. However, at 4:20 Yertis was playing its first power play as well when Tomas Vak tied the game at one.

The Kazakh team had more puck possession but lacked discipline in the first period. When Peter Fabus was sent to the sin bin for tripping, Martin Chovan took another penalty for holding the stick. It was the penalties that gave the host club the chance to put extra pressure on Yertis Pavlodar’s net in the first 20 minutes. But this time they didn’t capitalize on it and were even lucky that Robert Huna and Michal Grman didn’t make use of a 2-on-1 breakaway.

Richard Huna made it better on another breakaway at 16:21. He was left alone when receiving the pass from Grman and won the one-on-one against goalie Benjamin Meisner to gain Yertis its first lead of the game.

After a start of the second period in which the two teams neutralized themselves most of the time, it was Timothy Miller who tied the game with a shorthanded goal. He appeared alone in front of Marek Pinc’s net after Martin Cakajik’s terrible giveaway.

Four minutes later the penguins jumped for joy again. Bjorn “Bumm Bumm” Bombis put the puck into the net and the home team regained the lead. And at 6:18 of the third period Andrew McPherson scored the 4-2 goal with a shot from the face-off circle.

That goal was a wake-up call for Yertis Pavlodar, which had a shot-on-goal advantage of 31-19 but had trouble putting the puck in. Yertis didn’t manage to capitalize on a power play that followed shortly but Kazakh veteran Andrei Troshinski cut Bremerhaven’s lead half a minute later to make it a one-goal game. And with four-and-a-half minutes left in regulation time team captain Sergei Miroshnichenko tied the game for Yertis Pavlodar.

The game could have turned either direction and the fans at the loud Eisarena Bremerhaven seemed to put up with the game going to overtime when with 80 seconds left Fischtown Pinguins captain Marian Dejdar scored the 5-4 goal.

“It was a good game with ups and downs and a good and loud atmosphere,” Yertis’ Slovak forward Miroslav Zalesak said. “It was a bit disappointing for us to lose it like that in the end.”

Angers Ducs – Neman Grodno 0-5 (0-3, 0-2, 0-0) Video

Neman Grodno opened the 2015 IIHF Continental Cup Super Final with a 5-0 win over the Angers Ducs.

The Belarusian champion was simply better in all aspects of the game and this was shown already early in the encounter with the gap widening during the first 13 minutes for a 3-0 first-period lead.

Maxim Samankov earned a shutout with 19 saves while Andrei Korshunov scored two goals in the opening frame.

Alexander Malyavko brought his team on the scoreboard already after 57 seconds of play.

At 4:17 a screened Angers goaltender Jean-Sebastien Aubin let in another shot. Korshunov capitalized on the first power play to make it 2-0 for Neman Grodno and forcing the French to use their time-out.

At 13:11 Korshunov scored again to make it a three-goal lead capitalizing on passive work in the Angers defence. If he were not held back, Sergei Malyavko could even have scored a shorthanded goal on a breakaway before the first intermission.

“The first period was decisive. Scoring three early goals helped us a lot because it was a fast game from both sides,” said Korshunov, who wasn’t totally satisfied with the game and called his own performance simply normal despite the two markers.

Also in the second period it was the Belarusians who had more and the better scoring opportunities. At 12:07 Vladimir Mikhailov and Konstantin Lastovetski were too fast for the French and the latter scored the 4-0 goal.

Latvian national team forward Aleksejs Sirokovs even made it 5-0 three minutes later but the match became more heated when instead of celebrating the goal Sirokovs was hit from behind into the boards by Yannick Tifu.

Angers coach Real Paiement took out Aubin to bring backup goalie Alexis Neau for the third period. He kept his net clean but there were no changes in the offence. Angers was without a scoring chance for many minutes in the third period, which ended with no goals.

It was a surprisingly clear win considering that Neman edged Angers 4-3 in the preliminary round.

“We can’t start that way against a team like this. We were not moving the puck, we were just watching them. They are too good of a team so we were not able to come back,” Paiement said.

Click here for scores and stats.

MARTIN MERK