Black Wings Linz vs Straubing Tigers

Brandt opened the scoring inside two minutes, converting from Jamieson Rees at 01:55. Linz responded with sustained possession but could not find an equaliser. Brandt struck again at 17:10, this time fed by Spencer Kersten and Rees, and completed his natural hat-trick 52 seconds before the first intermission on the power play, Nicolas Beaudin supplying the assist. Straubing carried a 3-0 lead into the first break.

Linz halved the deficit early in the middle period. Brady Shaw scored on the power play at 28:42, Niklas Würschl with the assist. But Brandt answered 7½ minutes later with his fourth of the night, finishing a Tigers man-advantage chance set up again by Rees at 36:05.

The home side trimmed the gap once more in the third period through Shawn St-Amant at 52:52, assisted by Vojtěch Mozík. Any hope of a full comeback was extinguished quickly: Spencer Kersten restored the three-goal cushion at 54:59 from Stefan Loibl's feed, sealing the 5-2 final.

Goal timeline:

Brandt's natural hat-trick in the opening frame — three goals from three different assist combinations — gave Straubing a 3-0 lead before the game was 20 minutes old. Linz had the puck for long stretches of the first period but could not convert possession into goals, while Brandt capitalised on every look he got. The deficit forced Linz head coach Philipp Lukas to chase the game from the second period onward, a structural disadvantage his team never fully recovered from.

Marcel Brandt (Straubing Tigers) — Player of the Match. Four goals on the night, including a natural hat-trick in the first period and a fourth on the power play in the middle frame. Brandt's finishing was clinical: three different assist combinations produced three different kinds of finishes. He single-handedly outscored the entire Linz side.

Jamieson Rees (Straubing Tigers). Three primary assists, all on Brandt goals. Rees was the creative hub of Straubing's attack, reading Brandt's movements and delivering the puck at the right moment each time.

Brady Shaw (Black Wings Linz). Scored Linz's first goal to give the home crowd belief early in the second period and was a persistent threat on the power play.

Jakub Škarek (Straubing Tigers). Solid in goal, particularly denying a breakaway chance in the third period that could have cut the lead to 3-2 and shifted momentum.

The box score shows a penalty-heavy game (Linz 14 minutes, Straubing 8), with three of the seven goals coming on the power play. Straubing struck twice with the man advantage; Linz once. Brandt's four-goal haul means a single player accounted for 80% of Straubing's offence. Linz generated multiple high-quality chances — especially a third-period breakaway stopped by Škarek — but finished with just two goals from what appeared to be a respectable shot volume (official shot count not published at time of writing). The first-period gap (0–3) proved decisive: it was the second time in four pre-season games that Linz conceded three or more in the opening frame.

Black Wings Linz remain winless in pre-season (0–4) after losses to Red Bull München (2–5), HC Litvínov (3–2), ERC Ingolstadt (4–1) and now Straubing. Head coach Philipp Lukas acknowledged structural issues in finishing before the match. Linz next face Straubing again on Sunday, 30 August at Eisstadion am Pulverturm (16:30 CEST) in the reverse fixture of this double-header, before opening their ICEHL regular season on 18 September.

Straubing Tigers — who finished third in the DEL regular season last year before a tight quarter-final exit to Berlin — continue to build momentum with this win, following their Gäubodencup run (3–2 win over Nürnberg, 6–3 final loss to Wolfsburg). They close the Linz double-header on Sunday before a double-header against Banes Motor České Budějovice on 4 and 6 September, then their DEL season opener at Eisbären Berlin on 17 September.

Marcel Brandt delivered one of the most dominant individual performances of any European pre-season fixture this August, scoring four of Straubing's five goals. Linz competed in phases but lacked the finishing edge to punish Straubing's defensive lapses — a pattern that will concern Lukas with the ICEHL season two weeks away. The rematch on Sunday offers an immediate chance for Linz to adjust, but on this evidence, Straubing's sharpness in transition and on the power play gives them a clear edge heading into the return fixture.