No regulation win in 14 games: what has gone wrong in Wiener Neustadt
Five points from fourteen games, a power play at 5.2 percent and a losing streak that lasted a month. The Knights are the only club in the league without a regulation win, and the fans keep coming anyway.
It took until October 11 for the Theresien Arena to see a Knights win, and even that one, 3-2 over the league-leading Royals, needed overtime. Fourteen rounds into the season, Wiener Neustadt's record reads 0-1-3-10: one overtime win, three overtime or shootout losses, ten defeats. Five points. The next-worst team, Bregenz, has more than twice as many.
The streak
The Knights opened the season with a shootout loss in Salzburg on September 11 and took only one more point, in a 2-1 overtime loss to St. Pölten on September 18, before October 11: nine straight games without a win, the longest run in the league this season. In that month they scored 14 goals and allowed 33.
Where it breaks down
The power play. Three goals on 58 opportunities, 5.2 percent, is not a slump, it is a structural problem. The next-worst unit in the league, Steyr, sits at 13.3 percent. Head coach Jürgen Wallner has rotated three different first units in the last three weeks.
Scoring depth. Lorenz Ofner has nine of the team's 25 goals. No other Knight has reached double digits in points. Next come defenceman Elia Marchetti (8 points), captain Kevin Bergmann and Kyle Plourde (7 each).
The crease. Tim Hofbauer (.881) and Samuel Brandstätter split the first eight starts without a win between them. On October 9 the club signed veteran Liam Thériault from Dornbirn, who had three goalies under contract, and goaltending has at least stopped being the first problem on the list.
What has worked
The crowd. Wiener Neustadt averages 3,886 in a 4,200-seat building, a 92.5 percent occupancy, the best in the league. And the penalty kill, at 78.9 percent, is ninth in the league, mediocre rather than disastrous.
What comes next
Steyr on Friday, Villach on Sunday, then the international break. Wallner, asked after Sunday's 3-2 loss in St. Pölten whether his job is safe, gave the only answer he could: "I'm paid to find solutions, not to count the days. We were in every game this month. Now we have to win one."
| # | Team | GP | W | OTW | OTL | L | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Royals ViennaVIE | 14 | 9 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 32 |
| 2 |  Graz ThunderGRZ | 14 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 4 | 25 |
| 3 |  Linz Steel WolvesLIN | 14 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 22 |
| 4 |  Steyr HammersSTE | 14 | 6 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 21 |
| 5 |  St. Pölten LionsSTP | 14 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 7 | 18 |
| 6 |  Wiener Neustadt KnightsWRN | 14 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 10 | 5 |
