A snowy drive, questionable officiating, and a different line-up couldn’t stop the Stars from ending their two game losing streak on Wednesday night in Linz.  Led offensively by Philipp Kreuzer, the Stars rode his offensive outburst to a 7-4 win against the Linz BlackWings.

The scoring started early for the young winger, as he opened up the proverbial floodgates five minutes into the game on a great feed from Fabio Kläy which started from a pinch down the wall by Albert Krammer. Just 14 seconds later, Stefan Hrdina grabbed a loose puck on the wall from the left point and let go a seeing-eye wrister that somehow made its way past Kevin Mayrhofer in the Linz net. This seemed to relax the road team, and Linz didn’t waste the chance. Three minutes later, the ’Wings got on the board, as Mario Pichler beat Johann Bauer from the left face-off circle, using Gustaf Warnelius as a screen on the play. Sam Antonitsch restored the lead (Kreuzer)   just over two minutes later as he found himself open on the backdoor, and the cross-crease pass from Kreuzer made it an easy tap in for the young Austrian. Linz wouldn’t quit, as they again answered the bell with Nikolas Mayrhauser beating Bauer again on a strikingly similar short side shot from the left circle. O’Leary pulled Bauer in hopes of shaking up his team and giving the young Erlaufian netminder, citing that it wasn’t Bauer’s fault.  “We weren’t helping him, and that was the need for the change. We were lucky, and Finker played well, but that doesn’t take anything away from Johann and what he does for us.”

The switch seemed to work, as the Stars suddenly seemed to be a little more serious. The second frame started much in the same way as the first, with Kreuzer (Fellinger, Krammer) gave the Stars their two-goal lead back, just before the midway point of the period. Fritz Schroder got involved in the scoring just five and a half minutes later (Jan Bernhardt) on a rebound. Linz tried to rally, as Mayrhauser again managed to squeak one through the Gig Harbour goaltender.   After forty minutes, the Stars had built up a 5-3 lead.

As the third opened, who else but Kreuzer (Hrdina, Krammer) answered in 4-on-4 play. Linz, enjoying one of many man-advantages, buried one on the powerplay as Pichler again lit the lamp for the hometown crew. Kreuzer (Fellinger, Kläy) again found mesh on a powerplay of their own after a great tic-tac-toe play by the forward unit, ending the scoring for the remainder of the game.

After the effort, O’Leary couldn’t help but offer a few jabs at referee Oliver Rambauser. “Was he from Linz?” the Canadian coach chuckled. “Seriously... I don’t think there could have been many more ‘opportune’ penalties taken by us. I guess contact hockey is only prominent at the U-20 level here.”  Vorlicek echoed the sentiment. “Yeah. We saw of fair share of five on fours at the wrong time. Funny how that works!”  The two coaches don’t have much time to worry, however, as the weekend is bringing up the first meeting between the Stars and Vienna’s Junior Caps this Saturday in St. Polten at 14:15. “This is perfect: not much down time, and much less turnaround until our next game. It doesn’t matter who the opponent is, though. Our biggest adversary is ourselves, and getting our guys to learn preparation and how important that is to their success is the most important thing.”