Despite another goal by Denis Malgin, the ZSC Lions lost game 5 in the play-off final series against EV Zug 1:4. Dario Simion turns the match around with a hat trick. Game 6 takes place on Friday in the Hallenstadion.
Dario Simions 2: 1 postpones the Zurich championship dreams for another two days.
The playoffs are a game of nerves. The better team does not always prevail. In the first three years, the qualification winner Lugano also became champion in the end. In 1989, SC Bern overthrew this hierarchy and dethroned the Ticino team.
At that time, the Bernese unnerved the Luganesi with endless liberation strikes, which ultimately led to a change in the regulations. Today, the perpetrator of the unauthorized liberation may no longer change his staff on the ice. There is a risk of burning lungs and leaden legs.
In the case of the final series between EV Zug and the ZSC Lions, this hierarchy is not quite as clear as it was at the time of the Grande Lugano. The people of Zug are defending champions and also qualifying winners. The Zurich squad is at least as prominent as that of the EVZ, at least on paper. The last potential weak point, that of the goalie position, was eliminated by sports director Sven Leuenberger shortly before the turn of the year. In a way, he put Jakub Kovar under the Christmas tree for his club.
The better Kovar
Kovar was the decisive factor in preventing Zurich’s title ambitions from coming to an abrupt end in the quarterfinals against EHC Biel. The former Czech national goalkeeper is equal to Zug’s supposed title guarantor Leonardo Genoni. At least. After Wednesday’s game, it was even suggested that he could become the decisive trump card on the way to Zurich’s tenth title in the club’s history, the seventh since the merger with the ice hockey section of the Grasshopper Club.
Kovar kept his team in the game in Zug’s first Sturm-und-Drang phase, and he then didn’t allow anything during a five-minute suspension against Marco Pedretti, who had to go into the dressing room early after a knee check against Reto Suri. However, Zug’s majority game was also insufficient in this phase. Even during a two-minute 5v3 phase, they hardly created any dangerous chances. Jan Kovar came at the best opportunity. But the top scorer from Zug missed the goal from the best position.
The ZSC Lions have not only had the better Kovar in this series so far, they also probably have the better goaltender. Denis Malgin’s 1-0 almost exactly at half-time didn’t seem untenable. The Zurich striker beat Genoni in the near corner. It was the lightning-fast striker’s ninth play-off goal, the fourth in the final series.
The Curse of the First Gate
But there is another peculiarity in this final series. The first goal has never been decisive. In each of the first four games, the team that scored the first goal lost. Two minutes before the end of the middle third, Dario Simion made sure that the 1-0 was not the decisive goal in this match either. The Ticino is also one of the key players in this play-off series. On Monday he had put a damper on Zurich’s title ambitions in the Hallenstadion with a 3-1 win.
And it was Simion this time who scored the decisive goal. 8:44 minutes before the end he finished alone in front of Kovar and hit under the bar to make it 2:1. A good two minutes before the end, he decided the match with the 3:1 in the abandoned Zürcher Tor. The 1:2 was doubly bitter for Zurich because they were outnumbered at the time. Yannick Zehnder was in the penalty box for a hard check against the rink.
The ZSC Lions missed the second opportunity for a decisive fourth victory. They are still ahead in the series with 3-2 wins. Once behind, they were unable to react on Wednesday. On Friday evening they will definitely be playing in the Hallenstadion for the last time before they move to Altstetten on the other side of town. A title in the arena, which had been the club’s home for 72 years, would be an almost fairytale end to a relationship.
But the Lions’ path to the title hasn’t got any shorter. In the first three games, they had turned the match around in the third third and thus pulled the much-cited play-off momentum on their side. This benefit is now gone. The EV Zug dominated the fourth and fifth match, and with the line with Simion, Kovar and Fabrice Herzog he found a parade line and the answer to the Zurich Malgin storm.
The nerve game that regularly plays a role in the play-offs is coming to a head. The ZSC Lions no longer have much leeway for further defeats. Game 7 would take place in Zug on Sunday.