Game recap
In the goalless first period, the Red Bulls were the team with slightly more of the play and more drive to the goal in a lively game. Peter Schneider (10th) on a pass from Ryan Murphy and Thomas Raffl after a cross from Peter Schneider (11th) had the best opportunities up to that point, while Mario Huber also just missed the net in front of Bolzano goalkeeper Sam Harvey in the powerplay (19th). Salzburg goalkeeper David Kickert had less to do than his counterpart, but was on his guard for the first dangerous shots from the home side, who played their usual fast breakaways from defense.
Dennis Robertson almost gave his side the lead after the break (21'), but the shot, which Sam Harvey was unable to hold, was knocked away on the goal line. That was left to Peter Hochkofler (23), who took a shot from the center of the net after an assist from Tim Harnisch. Just a minute and a half later, the home side equalized with Connor Ford's goal on their first powerplay (24'). The Red Bulls then pressed for a long time, Paul Huber (33) with a top chance from close range. But Bolzano took the lead from a counter-attack, Mike Halmo luckily beat three defenders and somehow put the ball in the net (33'). Salzburg now played for the equalizer and tried to create chances, while Bolzano remained dangerous on the counter-attack and created a lot of pressure in front of Salzburg's goal. The Red Bulls trailed by one goal after 40 minutes.
The final period began with a solo effort from Luca Frigo (42'), but David Kickert remained the winner. As he did in the 45th minute in a 1 vs. 1 against Angelo Miceli. But in the same minute, Mike Halmo scored from an acute angle under the crossbar to increase Bolzano's lead to 3:1. The Red Bulls then stepped up their attack even more, but the last pass rarely arrived against the tight Bolzano defense and Sam Harvey was on his guard against the sometimes good shots from distance. Peter Schneider was also unable to get through from a tight angle (56'). There was simply no way through and in the 59th minute the South Tyroleans sealed the Red Bulls' 4-1 defeat in Bolzano with an empty-net goal from Davis Vandane.