Ice Fever is still at a high in Zagreb! 15.200 Fans flock to the arena no matter who the opposition may be. Up next: HDD TILIA Olimpija Ljubljana. The Bears went to overtime three times in the six games played in 2012, and lost all three of them, while they won the rest of their game in regulation. This season, Medvescak lost all their Overtime-games, while they’re 3-from-4 once the shootout is reached.
“I don’t have a proper explanation for that one”, says Headcoach Marty Raymond. “We need to remain hungry in the Overtime. Play-off-games are too late to learn that. Tuesday might be a great chance to proove we understand. There’s a long-standing rivalry between the two teams. We need to be dominant and aggressive and we’ll have to improve our Special team performance. We want to give our fans a win and we want to come in second.”
Robert Kristan will guard the Crease against his compatriots. Ryan Kinasewich has scored a whopping 15 points (ten goals) in nine games against Ljubljana since joining the Bears last season. Kenny MacAulay is rated doubtful.

Olimpija’s win against Graz on Sunday was marred by losing Justin Taylor (13 goals, 17 assists) and Ales Music (18 goals, 23 Assists) to injury. Music will miss half of the intermediate stage, while Taylor could be out for two weeks. Youngsters Miha Verlic and Anze Ropret remain sidelined, too. Headcoach Hannu Järvenpää’s team has four consecutive wins, secured a playoff-spot and even overtook EC-KAC to take fourth place in the table „Every Team has their Ups and Downs. We got together as a team and we knuckled down and we’re back in there. We know we have a good team and we have confidence in our strengths. Team chemistry is great and we git a streak together on which we’ll try to build in Zagreb. The guys will have to be focused and play our game.”
Seven Coaches and many Cars form Slovenia are expected for the big match-up, trying to support their team at the Zagreb Arena.

Salzburg face Graz
EC Red Bull Salzburg will trust an unchanged line-up from the defeat in Linz, confirms Forward Thomas Raffl. He adds: “Scoring the first goal is always critical and very important for a game. You get Momentum and that often results in a win. 99ers are a team with great individual players which we’ll have to be on guard for.”
Moser Medical Graz 99ers are in-form despite the loss in Ljubljana and Mario Richers wants his team to “play our game. Scoring the first goal would be of advantage, that’s for sure.“ Graz have gone 27 months without a win in Salzburg, and will be without Daniel Woger and Frederic Cloutier, while Yvan Busque is rated doubtful.

Carinthian derby
With EC-KAC a fixed member of the placement round and EC REKORD-Fenster VSV a guaranteed candidate for the qualification round, the derby is played against each other and against all the rest in their half of the table. KAC’s Markus Pirmann acknowledges: “it’s always been a tough game, the derby, and of course it will be again. We’ll give our best to get fourth place, that’s for sure.” Kirk Furey (personal) is expected back in the line-up for the game.
VSV’s Gerhard Unterluggauer thinks it’s of utmost importance to „play a compact defensive game and make more out of the chances we get. We’ve defeated all three top teams and it seems we get along with those easier then with others.”
Newest addition Rob Shearer might be on the roster for the first time while a cloud of doubt hangs over topscorer Markus Peintners availability.