EVZ runners-up in regular season

UPDATE: All playoff games have been postponed until 15 March

The regular season ended not with a bang but with a whimper for EV Zug, who dropped three of their final four games and finished second overall. This is where the serious business begins however, with the play-offs starting on 7 March and the boys in blue set for a serious title tilt – Corona virus permitting…

Two defeats to ZSC Lions in the last four regular-season matches will be cause for concern, particular as it enabled the Zurich outfit to squeeze past Zug and into top spot on the rankings. Should it come down to a final between those two, ZSC will have home ice – but that scenario is a long way away.

Zug will begin their play-off tilt at home to Fribourg – a team they have played twice in the past couple of weeks, with a 5-0 home success on 16 February followed by a narrow 2-1 defeat on penalties last Tuesday. The teams have split their four meetings this season, so Zug will be taking nothing for granted.

After that 5-0 win, EVZ were six points clear at the top of the table and three points in their final two matches would have been enough to guarantee that spot at the end of the season, but they fell just short. On Friday they squeezed past Langnau 5-4 on penalties, having led 2-0 and 3-1, only for the defence to open up far too often for the liking of the coaching duo of Dan Tangnes and Josh Holden. Jan Kovar scored twice in the opening period, but it needed a strike from Sven Senteler in the dying seconds, six-on-five after Leo Genoni had left his net for an extra attacker to take the match into overtime. Top scorer Grégory Hoffmann was then the only man to score a penalty shot to give Zug the extra point.

That meant that second slot in the table was guaranteed, and anything other than a loss in regulation time to Zurich on Saturday would have seen Zug win the regular season. Alas, it was not to be, and the blueline was again found wanting. Just after the half-hour mark, the boys in blue were four goals adrift, and though Dario Simion pulled one back, that was as good as it got. Genoni was brilliant in goal, and when you say that about a 4-1 defeat, you know that the back line obviously came up short…

Tangnes has been chopping and changing his defensive formations. Rafael Diaz and Johann Morant will doubtless continue to get the lion’s share of ice time, but Dominik Schlumpf, Livio Stadler, Miro Zyrd and Santeri Alatalo will all have to step up to the plate in the play-offs.

There is, of course, another factor that needs to be taken into account – the Corona virus. The last two matches were played in front of empty arenas, with the coaches’ voices echoing around the stadia (making time-outs and tactical decisions difficult to keep secret from the opposing team!) The first round of the play-offs is due to begin on Saturday 7 March, and the nationwide ban on gatherings of more than a thousand people is in place until Sunday 15 March. The first four matches (two at home, two away) will therefore be played without fans.
There is even talk of the post-season being cancelled, in which case the team that finished top of the table in the regular season will likely be declared champion. And that, of course, is Zurich Lions after their 4-1 win over EV Zug on Saturday night. Though the championship would be marked in the record books with an asterisk, imagine the disappointment of losing the title by one point on the last day …

Drew Lilley