Thanks to the passionate backing of a sold-out crowd at the Boxen Arena, the Danish hosts started brightly putting plenty of pressure on the German hosts from the start as Mikael Gath's men looked full of confidence after three successive wins and a massive 6-3 victory against bitter rivals Norway, which earned Denmark a shot of booking a ticket for their first quarterfinal since 2016.
The Danes won the shot-on goal-statistics 14-5 in the first period while Frederik Dickow looked well protected by a strong Danish defense.
But the Danes couldn't make their dominance tell on the scoreboard mainly thanks to a superb performance from German keeper Philipp Grubauer while Detroit Lions' star defender Moritz Seider played a big part in preventing the hosts from getting that all-important opening goal.
The Danes have throughout the tournament struggled to keep up the pace in the second period and Tuesday's crucial clash followed a a similar pattern as the Germans gradually dug themselves into the match.
Towards the end of the period, the Danes came under increased pressure as they couldn't clear the puck from their zone. And 46 seconds before the end of the period, the Danish defense caved in as a wrist shot Yasin Ehliz took a deflection past the reach of Dichow to silence the partisan crowd.
The Danes came out determined to the third period and seemed on the verge of turning the tide as they fashioned a host of chances in the opening minutes of the period. But as Grubauer kept keeping the Danes frustrated, the hosts seemed to be running out of ideas until NHL-profile Nikolaj Ehlers who arrived from Winnipeg earlier in the day restored parity ten minutes into the third period.
As none of the teams were able to add to the scoreboard for the remainder of the match, the game was forced into overtime where Ehlers came close to scoring the winning goal but the scoreline remained the same as the drama intensified with the two teams heading into a penalty shoot-out.
In the shoot-out Nick Olesen and Jonathan Blichfeld scored for Denmark while Dickow saved all German attempts as the arena erupted in pure joy.
In the other matches of the group on Tuesday night, Switzerland confirmed their top spot position with an expected 4-1 win against Kazakhstan while a very young American team stunned the reigning world champions from the Czech Republic 5-2 to steal the second spot in the group on goal difference.