SC Bern is parting ways with coach Johan Lundskog. It is a dismissal without necessity – and yet the right decision. The Swede has himself to blame for his antiquated coaching.
Exit through the back door: Johan Lundskog has to resign as head coach at SC Bern.
On Saturday evening, SC Bern defeated the ZSC Lions 4:3. It’s the 11th win in the 20th game of the season, but the decision to sack coach Johan Lundskog has long been made – the decision was made on Thursday. Although SCB played a respectable first third of the championship given the circumstances.
Sixth place is an attractive interim result when you consider that Dominik Kahun, the most important individual player, was only able to play seven games due to injury. That the SCB employs one of the nominally and statistically weakest number 1 goalkeepers in the league in the equally talented and inexperienced Philip Wüthrich. That the regular players Éric Gélinas, Marco Lehmann and Mika Henauer are injured. And that the move Sven Bärtschi, brought back from North America for a lot of money, with seven scorer points from 20 games is one of the big disappointments in the championship so far.
With Lundskog, SCB played mostly joyless and unsuccessful result hockey
Lundskog, 38, was hired by sports director Florence Schelling in April 2021. Unlike the manager who was hurriedly released at the first opportunity, the club’s management around CEO Raeto Raffainer had a lot of patience with Lundskog. Raffainer brought the Swede to Davos as an assistant coach back in 2019 and has never tired of raving about Lundskog’s potential since then: A man for the NHL is, in the long term, a communicatively outstanding, modern, smart coach.
But with Lundskog, the SCB even missed the pre-play-off last season after unworthy performances at the end of the qualification and presented the annex mostly joyless result hockey. If that leads to wins, as it did under two-time champion coach Kari Jalonen, the coach will be forgiven. But if you don’t offer any spectacle and still lose most of the time, it gets tricky. In the entertainment business of hockey, there are better combinations than these.
This fall, Lundskog was a coach on a very short leash — and didn’t have the aplomb to hide it. Ramon Untersander, Romain Loeffel, Chris DiDomenico and Oscar Lindberg are among the 20 players with the most ice time in the league from Bern. No other team has such a large group at the top of these statistics. Not even HC Ajoie or the SCL Tigers, where the dependence on individual players is much greater given the quality gap in the squad.
Lundskog coached very conservatively, like someone who knew that the next loss could be one too many. It’s ironic that even a win couldn’t save him. He was the wrong coach for the progressive ideas of Raffainer, a doer who swears by speed hockey and a well-dosed distribution of strength and resources.
Raffainer and Lundskog have worked together for more than three years. And it’s amazing that the Swede hasn’t been able to develop a finer sense for the requirements of a coach working under this CEO in such a long time. Raffainer was quoted as saying on Saturday evening: “We gave Johan Lundskog time to develop the team until the national team break. We have always said that the process is crucial. In this regard, we had to realize that the development has been going in the wrong direction for a few weeks. We have to improve if we want to be in the fight for direct play-off places in spring. So we’re making a change now.”
Since the dismissal of Kari Jalonen, there has been a lack of stability in the coaching position at SCB
It is still unclear who will look after the SCB after the national team break – and whether it will be an internal or external solution. Since the sacking of Kari Jalonen in January 2020, the club haven’t shown too much circumspection in filling the managerial post. Hans Kossmann left no trace as an interim coach, Don Nachbaur was a disaster and Lundskog, despite comprehensive coaching support measures, was a disappointment.
Regardless of who will coach this team soon, SCB have not finished 11th, 9th and 9th by accident over the last three years – the club paid the price for the fat years before with three league titles and three qualifying wins in 2016- 2019; the team was overaged, expensive and fed up.
While the squad has been upgraded for this season, returning to the top will not happen overnight. The next coach will not work without the patience of the appendix and management. But it would only help if this coach were a little less clumsy than Johan Lundskog.