Eisbären Berlin beat Lausitzer Füchse 3-1 in a club friendly match on Saturday afternoon. The result came at the Berlin arena on 30 August, with the home side taking all three points against a visitor who had been finding goals in recent outings.
By then the fixture carried little competitive weight, but the scoreline said enough about where each side stood. Berlin needed something to shift the mood after a difficult fortnight, and Lausitzer arrived with momentum from their latest game.
The hosts had not been in much of a groove before this one. A 7-0 defeat to Augsburg Panthers followed by a 2-2 loss to Zug left them searching for answers. Before that came two results against Mannheim — a 4-1 win and a 3-4 loss — suggesting inconsistency rather than collapse.
Lausitzer's form looked sharper on paper. They beat Katowice 5-2 most recently, though earlier in March they traded wins and losses with Kassel in a series of close encounters. Four games against the same opponent in one month tells you something about scheduling, and they came out on top in three of those five.
Three points and a goal difference of plus two for Berlin after a match that needed to exist. Lausitzer take a point and a single goal into whatever comes next. Nothing dramatic, but the visitors held their shape against a side that had been struggling.