Tornado unbeaten streak continues with a 7-1 win against Dunkerque
09 March 2010
On Saturday, February 27, Tornado played it's second home game of the play-down round and posted another impressive win, 7-1 against the league-worst Dunkerque.
The level of the game was not as good as the Tornado fans are used to, but the win was important for the team in their quest to stay atop the standings. The showdown between the league's two best teams Asnières and Tornado will then be next weekend, March 13 and 14 with a double-header in Luxembourg (please watch the schedule, Asnières is playing both games in Luxembourg).
The game plan against the weak Dunkerque team was pretty clear: take the game to their end and avoid unnecessary physical confrontation like in the away game in Dunkerque where several players got injured.
From the get-go, Tornado had difficulties imposing its game though and Dunkerque managed to get a couple of scoring chances against solid Michel Welter between the Tornado pipes. Although the offensive effort was there, Joakim Eriksson's squad could not seem to find the back of the net until Francois Schons, playing offense with Robert Beran and Julien Dequidt struck on a rebound at 13:33 for the 1-0 lead as Dunkerque's Petre was serving a hooking penalty.
On a breakaway and a nice pass from Ichinorov, Benny Welter upped the score to 2-0 at 16:07 before leaving the game with an aggravation of his groin injury sustained at the 2009 World Championships in New Zealand.
2-0 was the score at the break and coach Eriksson wasn't very happy with the performance of his team.
A so far very discipline Tornado team started to play more physical in the second period, but the score was unaffected. The game more or less took place in the neutral zone and the show in front of the Tornado sponsor Alter Domus who staged a client event in the VIP stands upstairs was only going to start in the final period.
With a multitude of penalties in the final 20 minutes on both sides, the Tornado scoring machine finally started to work again as Schons struck again at 44:10 on a pass by Georges Scheier and Agi Ichinorov before captain Ronny Scheier hit a shot from the blue line home for the 4-0 at 51:15. 73 seconds later, the same Ronny Scheier found the back of the net, again with a screened shot from the blue line, this time on the powerplay and Tornado seemed to be cruising to a high score. The fate of the game was sealed when, at 54:48, David Donzel finally scored after numerous scoring chances and converted Beran's and Schons' pass for the 6-0. At 57:21, Dunkerque's Allaert destroyed Michel Welter's bid for a shutout as he scored on a 5-on-3 powerplay. In the dying seconds of the game, Kai Linster got redemption for his injury sustained in the Dunkerque game in January when he scored the 7-1 final score on another pass by Ichinorov.
All in all, a well deserved win for the home team that has never been seriously tested. The fight for the league win will be staged next weekend and hopefully Tornado can continue it's unbeaten streak that runs now at 4.