Status quo for EV Zug

Three points gained, three lost. Seven goals scored, seven conceded. It was a weekend of ups and downs for EV Zug, but one which ultimately saw them tread water in the NLA with time now fast running out. Eighth-placed Langnau Tigers – Zug's rivals for the final play-off spot – also picked up three points in their two matches on Friday and Saturday, leaving Zug still five points adrift of the play-offs with seven games to go.

 

With Langnau winning on Friday night, EVZ knew that a win was imperative when they hosted Servette on Saturday, and coach Doug Shedden brought back "lucky charm" Dale McTavish, who had missed the previous weekend's defeats to Davos and Kloten as part of his rehabilitation from the injury that cost him the first half the season. Brad Isbister was forced to sit on the bench as the fifth foreign import, but he saw a Zug performance that, while never scaling the heights, was enough to neutralise the speedy Geneva attacks and break effectively on the counter.

 

Patrick Fischer's early marker was cancelled out 19 seconds before the end of the first period, and things were again tight in the second. Corsin Camichel, brother of captain Duri who returned from concussion after missing two games, again gave Zug the lead, only for a short-hander from the visitors to level the score. McTavish it was who scored the decisive third goal with less than 30 seconds before the second buzzer, and the Canadian's marker would stand up as the game-winner. Corsin Casutt and Duri Camichel added insurance goals in the third period, but the man of the match was keeper Lars Weibel. Servette was a mooted destination for Weibel during his period out of favour last December where he found himself warming the bench. Since seizing his chance due to the illness of the on-loan Reto Berra earlier this month however, the goalie has been on imperious form, and this was the case on Saturday, particularly in the first two periods.

 

Weibel took his good form into Sunday's match against Berne, but even his heroics were not enough as Zug found themselves involved in another 5-2 scoreline, only this time on the wrong side. The goalie kept his side in the match in a goalless first period, stopping everything that last season's league winners threw at him, but he could only hold back the tide so long. The floodgates opened in the second as Zug shipped four goals, and though they hauled themselves back into contention in the final period thanks to goals from Fabian Schnyder and Damian Brunner, it was too little, too late, with Berne forward Martin Plüss rounding off a hat-trick by scoring into an empty net with six seconds remaining.

 

Perhaps it was too much to ask for Zug to win in the PostFinance Arena, a venue where they have now lost 21 consecutive matches dating back to 2001. It is exactly that, however, that they will be expected to do should they make the play-offs, with Berne vying with Kloten and Zurich for top spot and the right to host the eighth-placed team that Zug hope to be. To achieve that, they have seven games in which to make up a five-point deficit. The two games away to direct rivals Langnau in the first half of February will be a mini play-off series in themselves – a series that Zug will have to win 2-0 if they are to play off for glory as opposed to "playing out" to avoid the ignominy of relegation,

 

 

Drew Lilley.