Nürnberg Ice Tigers and Adler Mannheim met in the DEL on Tuesday, with the hosts taking a 5:3 victory. The game was played at the Nürnberg arena on 22 September, and the result keeps the Ice Tigers at the top of the table after three matches.
And here's the thing about this kind of start — three wins from three doesn't tell you much about the character of the team. What matters is how they won. The Ice Tigers have been scoring freely: 6:2 against ERC Ingolstadt on the 20th, then 4:1 over Augsburger Panther two days earlier. They've found their rhythm.
To be fair, the visitors had momentum of their own. Adler Mannheim came into this game with a 4:3 win over Eisbären Berlin on the 20th, and before that a 4:3 victory against Fribourg-Gottéron. They'd been competitive in every game, even when the results didn't go their way. A 3:4 loss to München Red Bull and a 5:4 win over Borde — they weren't far off.
By then, our prediction had already gone the other way. We'd backed the away side at 49 per cent confidence, and that margin simply wasn't enough. The match broke differently than expected. The Ice Tigers took control early and never let the visitors back in, which is what happens when you're playing at home and the crowd is behind you.
The table now shows Nürnberg in first place with three wins, while Mannheim sit fifth with one victory and two defeats. Both teams have zero points in the standings — that's how the DEL calculates it at this stage — but the gap between them is already clear. Nürnberg have kept three clean sheets on the spin in terms of not losing, and they're running out of games where they can afford mistakes.
What this means is straightforward. The hosts have opened talks about building on this start, and the visitors have nothing to lose going forward. Mannheim will need to tighten up if they want to climb out of fifth, while Nürnberg just need to keep doing what they've been doing.
