Germany's ice hockey team is angry in the quarterfinals of the World Cup in Finland.

Despite a record of points in the preliminary round and the strong performance as second in the group, national coach Toni Söderholm was beside himself after the unfortunate 3: 4 (2: 1, 0: 2, 1: 0) after a penalty shootout against Switzerland.

"That's not excusable," Söderholm scolded the team of referees on Tuesday after their "catastrophic decisions," which the national coach denounced at Sport1.

The 44-year-old Finn was proud of his team's strong game and morale against the group winners and World Cup favorites, but Söderholm saw himself deprived of a win in regular time and thus the group victory.

Instead, Switzerland, top of Group A, will play the USA in the quarter-finals on Thursday.

Germany's opponent was not yet certain in the afternoon and was only determined in a direct duel between hosts and Olympic champions Finland and the Czech Republic.

"Finishing second in the group is definitely a good starting position and positive for the day after tomorrow," said striker Marcel Noebels from the German champions Eisbären Berlin.

However, he also noted: "No matter who comes now, it will definitely be harder."

In a high-class duel between the arch-rivals, Kai Wissmann (12th minute) from the Eisbären and Stefan Loibl (16th) and Matthias Plachta (48th) from the Adler Mannheim scored the German goals in regular time.

For the favored Swiss with seven NHL cracks, Andres Ambühl (2nd) in his 17th World Cup participation, Pius Suter (22nd) and Denis Malgin (39th) were successful in the 60 minutes.

For the first time at this World Cup, Switzerland had to go into overtime without scoring a goal.

Nico Hischier and Damien Riat were successful in the penalty shoot-out, but nobody scored for Germany.

With the draw after 60 minutes, Switzerland's group victory and Germany's second place were already clear.

The 16 points that the selection of the German Ice Hockey Federation collected in the seven group games is, despite the defeat, the best preliminary round yield of a German World Cup team ever.

"Great, I have to say that," said Noebels about the German appearance so far.

“But we still have to put that behind us.

On Thursday nobody asks how we played in the preliminary round.

Only winning or losing counts.”

And the prospects against fourth-placed USA from Group B would have been better.

In the second third, the controversial referee team Linus Öhlund from Sweden and Peter Stano from Slovakia denied the German team a five-minute majority for the first time.

Fabrice Herzog checked Kai Wissmann into the gang, but only got two minutes for it.

"There is no question that this is a match penalty," Söderholm complained afterwards.

"It was one of the most dangerous checks I've seen in recent years.

Anything can happen there.

You can't sugarcoat that.

A huge mistake.”

In the short power play that followed, no German goal was scored.

Worse still: Instead of the longer German majority, the referees whistled what Söderholm called a "cheap" penalty against Germany's captain Moritz Müller, in which Malgins promptly scored the opening goal.

In the final section, he elbowed Leon Gawanke in the face, and the German defender had to come off the ice, bleeding.

This also usually means five minutes plus a match penalty in ice hockey.

But the referees didn't even give two minutes.

"That is not excusable," said Söderholm.

"It's always said: We have to protect the players.

But then we don't do it.

What is happening there is too dangerous.”

Nevertheless, his players showed morale and equalized with a dream goal from Plachta, which secured second place in the preliminary round.

"Our first goal has been achieved," said Plachta, and Noebels said: "When I see that we can keep up very well against this strong team and could even have won, I'm confident that we don't have such bad chances at the tournament ourselves."