Merciless efficiency, an outstanding goalie Mathias Niederberger and experienced old stars: The Eisbären Berlin have triumphantly defended the championship title in the German Ice Hockey League at EHC Red Bull Munich.

On Wednesday evening, the DEL record champions celebrated their ninth championship overall with a 5-0 (1-0, 3-0, 1-0) win over their Bavarian rivals.

After three hard-fought games in the best-of-five series, goals from Matthew White (9th/37th/60th minute), Frans Nielsen (25th) and Marcel Noebels (26th) ensured the third win they needed , which was clear this time.

The Munich team repeatedly despaired of the outstanding national goalkeeper Niederberger, who is to switch to the EHC for the new season.

"Two or three mistakes - you can't give them to the Berliners, and we'll cut our teeth against a man," said Munich's national striker Max Kastner frustrated at MagentaSport before the final third.

The EHC team of former Berlin master trainer Don Jackson was only able to win game one of the final series in a DEL season that was again affected by the corona pandemic.

In the end, the Munich team missed the fourth title win after the hat-trick from 2016 to 2018 quite clearly.

The sovereign DEL main round winner of coach Serge Aubin was too strong for that.

With their ninth title, the polar bears passed the eight-time champions Düsseldorf, Cologne and Mannheim, all or some of whom still collected their titles in the former Bundesliga.

The Berliners confirmed the title from last year, which was won under different conditions.

With even stricter corona regulations, the past season took place without any spectators.

A year ago, in the playoffs, only two wins were necessary to advance or win the title.

Nagelsmann among the spectators

In the meantime, fans have long since been allowed back into the halls and the 5,533 spectators in the sold-out small Munich Olympia Hall made for a more atmospheric championship setting than in 2021. The audience was quickly confounded by the calm and self-confident polar bear.

Even FC Bayern coach Julian Nagelsmann in the audience brought no luck to the EHC.

The home side started powerfully but tensed up too quickly under the pressure to win at all costs.

The early sticking point in the game was the ninth minute: an EHC goal by Justin Schütz was correctly disallowed due to Niederberger's handicap.

Shortly thereafter, the Berliners struck.

White used a dream pass from the veteran Frank Hördler (37), who was strong in the playoffs.

This had an effect.

But the polar bears grew more self-confident.

In the middle section, two goals from the polar bears made the preliminary decision.

First, the now 38-year-old longtime Danish NHL star met Nielsen for the third time in the final series.

Only 51 seconds later, national striker Noebels increased.

At the latest after another brilliant act by Niederberger in the 35th minute against Ben Street, it seemed clear: EHC must continue to wait for the fourth title win.

Again White with a deflected shot and a hit into the empty net in the last minute made the Berlin final victory perfect after four out of five possible games.

National coach Toni Söderholm should also have been happy about that: From the two final teams, a good half dozen players could join the squad for the World Cup in Finland (May 13th to 29th) in the coming week.