Starting position
It was a good start to the current three-game week. The Red Bulls (5th) played a compact game against league leaders Hydro Fehérvár AV19 yesterday and hardly allowed the Hungarians to develop. As a result, the Salzburg team immediately got back on the road to success after their last defeat against the Vienna Capitals. Forwards Thomas Raffl, Lucas Thaler and Scott Kosmachuk, who returned to the lineup yesterday after a lengthy injury layoff, also played a big part in this. In Ljubljana, the Red Bulls want to build on their strong performance and take the next step towards a stable performance.
While the Red Bulls have had to contend with some ups and downs recently, the Slovenians (8th) should have regained a lot of confidence under their new, 40-year-old head coach. Former assistant coach Andrej Tavzelj took over from Finland's Antti Karhula on December 21 and has since conceded just one defeat (!) in eight games with the team. Yesterday, the Slovenians won 2:1 at home against HC Pustertal Wölfe. The battle for a place in the top 6 is therefore more than ever underway in Ljubljana and is likely to have been given a huge boost with the new spirit on the coaching bench.
Only one defeat in the last ten games
The Red Bulls have had good experiences with the Slovenian team in recent years. Since the 7:0 home win in December 2022, Salzburg have only lost one game against Ljubljana, namely this season on November 29 away from home with 1:2 after penalties. The other nine encounters, including the 6:2 home win just before Christmas, all ended in victory for the Red Bulls, although two more games in the 2023/24 season had to go into overtime or a penalty shootout.