After taking a two games to zero lead in the EBEL quarterfinals against the Vienna Capitals, Fehérvár AV19 ended up being eliminated in six game on Wednesday night.
Fehérvár AV19-UPC Vienna Capitals 2-5
The Capitals were able to get back into the series by winning two close games, one at home and one on the road. In game five things didn't exactly go as planned, for the first time in the series Vienna scored first when Rafael Rotter flipped a rebound past Christian Engstrand. Kenny McGowan made it 2-0 after Fehérvár was playing horribly coach Rob Pallin tried to shake things up as he switched Engstrand for Miklós Rajna. Engstrand was not playing bad but thing had to be done to get through to his team. By the time the period was over the Capitals were up 4-0 off of a Matt Watkins goal and a late Florian Iberer power play goal.
Early in the second period Dániel Kóger put life back into the arena when he skillfully flipped the puck past Matthew Zaba, who played outstanding. The second period was mostly a march of Capitals players to the penalty box but Alba Volán was not able to convert a single power play, infact they were 0 for 2 when they had a two man advantage.
In the third period Fehérvár finally converted a power play when Kevin Wehrs ripped a shot from the blue line that made it through traffic to make it 4-2. It looked as the team had its legs back that they were missing in the first period, those four goals were too big of a deficit to clear. In the end Iberer scored an empty net goal to make it 5-2 for Vienna and 3 games to 2 lead in the series
Rob Pallin- “We played in the first period like we wanted to have the season end, in the second and third periods we played hard and controlled the game but we were not able to convert on our power plays and thats the game”
Kevin Werhs-”We started out flat and gave up 4 goals, you can't do that in the playoffs, but we can build off of the second and third periods for game six in vienna. I thought we battled really hard to give us a chance to win the game.”
UPC Vienna Capitals-Fehérvár AV19 2-1 OT
In a surprise move Rob Pallin stuck with Rajna in net and it looked to payoff in the game. Fehérvár still had problems with power play but they did not get down early, which is huge in an elimination game on the road. Zaba and Rajna went toe to toe in a true goaltender battle. The game stayed scoreless through the first two periods and deep into the third. Both teams had a number of scoring chances but neither team was able to score a goal. In the second period Vienna had a goal waived off as Rajna ended up in the net. At 53:48 Andrew Sarauer finally scored the first goal of the game to give Fehérvár the 1-0 lead. Minutes later it looked as if Brett Carson had scored the tying goal, after a video review the goal was awarded.
In overtime the two goalies kept on battling, after a video review in OT the game stayed 1-1. Late in the first overtime period Kristopher Foucaut was able to score the game winner and series winner.
Rob Pallin-”It was a hard battle, either team could have taken todays game.During the tieing goal I heard the whistle, and if a goal is scored there should be no whistle. The boys played real hard, no one really believed that we can make it this far but we did and now it will take some time to get over this loss.”
Frank Banham-”It was tough, we fought until the end, we have to hold our heads up high and be proud, they are a good team that we lost to, we battled until the end.”
Game 1: Fehérvár AV19-UPC Vienna Capitals 4-3
Game 2: UPC Vienna Capitals-Fehérvár AV19 1-4
Game 3: Fehérvár AV19-UPC Vienna Capitals 2-4
Game 4: UPC Vienna Capitals- Fehérvár AV19 2-1 (OT)
Game 5: Fehérvár AV19-UPC Vienna Capitasl 2-5
Game 6: UPC Vienna Capitals-Fehérvár AV19 2-1 (OT)
Photo: Attila Soós