The 2019-20 DEL ice hockey season is going along nicely, with fourteen teams from Germany competing against each other in a bid to see who will become champions of the country.
EHC Red Bull München have been the team to beat, with the Bavarian side having won sixteen of their seventeen matches at the time of writing and the bookmakers make them 6/4 favourites to claim the title.
While it looks fairly certain that Munchen will top the regular standings, that will only earn them a place in the play-offs along with the other five leading teams. The remaining two places will be made available to the teams who finish between 7th – 10th, with two of these sides going through from the play-offs.
The fourteen teams play each other home and away before we get that wild card round, with the teams then going through to the quarter final stage before the semi-finals and final are played.
Adler Mannheim are the second favourites on the outright market, with the bookies going a general 5/2 about a team that are currently sitting fourth in the standings although they are expected to make the play-offs and mount a real challenge.
The bookmakers regard the front two in the betting as difficult to beat, with Eisbaren Berlin trading at 10/1 and this is a team whose form would only just be good enough to avoid the wildcard phase.
As for the Straubing Tigers, they have thus far won ten matches of the regular standings and landed a further three victories when it has come to the overtime victory situation. Just four defeats suggests that 14/1 is an appealing price about them becoming champions.
There are 364 games to be played in total and they run all the way through to April 2020, with Adler Mannheim currently the reigning champions after a comprehensive final victory over EHC Red Bull Munchen where they won by a 4-1 scoreline.