Krefeld Pinguine took an emphatic 5:2 victory over Frankfurt Löwen at the Festhalle on Thursday evening. The result came in the DEL, Germany's top ice hockey league, and extended the visitors' recent momentum while deepening the hosts' struggles.
Frankfurt had looked comfortable at times, but Krefeld carved them open when it mattered. The home side failed to hold their ground in the second period and ran out of legs as the visitors took control. It was not a game where Frankfurt could recover after falling behind.
Both sides enter this fixture with identical records on paper — six games played, two wins each, and zero points accumulated. The table does not yet tell the full story. Frankfurt sit in 11th place while Krefeld occupy seventh, but the gap is measured in form rather than standings at this stage.
The visitors arrived with mixed results. They lost to Iserlohn on 4 October after beating Ingolstadt two days earlier. Before that, a 5:2 win over Schwenningen and a 6:3 victory against Straubing showed they could score freely. They also dropped games to Mannheim and are now in control of the tie between the two sides, at least for this evening.
Frankfurt's recent run tells a different tale. Only one win — a 4:1 triumph over München Red Bulls — stands out from their last five outings. Losses to Bremerhaven, Berlin, Nürnberg, and Kölner have left them searching for consistency. They have not won since late September and the pressure is mounting.
Our prediction backed the home side at 71 per cent confidence. The forecast was wrong. Krefeld were sharper in transition and Frankfurt were left exposed whenever they pushed forward. One mistake ended any chance of a comeback, and the hosts simply could not match the visitors' tempo.
The result leaves Frankfurt two points behind Krefeld in the standings, though both teams remain on zero points with six games played. The visitors have now taken maximum points from their head-to-head meetings this season. The hosts will need to find answers quickly if they want to climb out of the lower half.
