National League on Friday – playoff fight: Lugano, Bern and Davos in lockstep – sports

• HC Lugano celebrates a 5-2 home win against the SCL Tigers in the National League and defends fifth place.
• Bern beats Zug 4-1 away and is still 3 points ahead of Davos, which beat Kloten 3-0.
• Biel had to admit defeat to Freiburg 2:5, Lausanne and the ZSC Lions achieved success.

Lugano – SCL Tigers 5:2

HC Lugano maintains fifth place in the table and thus a place in the playoffs. With the SCL Tigers they defeated one of the currently strongest teams at home on Friday with 5:2. The Langnauers had won 3 games in a row and 7 of the last 9 games. In Lugano, however, the guests woke up late. They only scored their first goal in the 52nd minute in the power play through Keijo Weibel. At this point, the Ticino team was leading 3-0 thanks to goals from John Quenneville (5th) and Calvin Thürkauf (47th) as well as Leandro Hausheer’s debut goal in the National League (51st). After Thürkauf’s 4:1, Harri Pesonen was able to shorten the score again, but Calle Andersson definitely put the lid on it with the 5:2 into the empty goal.

Zug – Bern 1:4

With 77 points, SC Bern is still in 6th place, level with Lugano. After SCB had lost all three duels of the season with EV Zug, they were able to achieve their first win away from home at the fourth attempt. Meanwhile, Zug is slipping deeper and deeper into the crisis, and the central Swiss have suffered their sixth bankruptcy in a row. The Bernese team got off to an ideal start and took the lead after 30 seconds through Marco Lehmann. Reto Suri equalized for Zug in the 27th minute. The EVZ then couldn’t find an answer to Simon Kindschi’s 2-1 score shortly before the second break. Joona Luoto and Lehmann again made the decision.

Davos – Kloten 3:0

HC Davos is 3 points behind Lugano and Bern, but also on par with the duo in terms of lost points. The Graubünden team, whose good run was broken in the last game against Lausanne, immediately returned to winning ways at home against Kloten. Andres Ambühl in the middle third and Dennis Rasmussen and Leon Bristedt in the final period shot the HCD to victory. Meanwhile, the Kloten team had to leave the ice as losers for the fifth time in a row.

Biel – Freiburg 2:5

Gottéron, who had already qualified for the playoffs, achieved a confident victory in Biel. The outstanding man was Marcus Sörensen. The Swede gave the guests a 1-0 lead after a fantastic move in the starting third. In the middle period, Freiburg pulled ahead with 3 goals – Sörensen had his stick in the game for all of the goals. Thanks to the 4 scorer points, the 31-year-old is the league’s top scorer again. Biel, which still has to worry about taking part in the play-ins, at least won the shot ratio with 38:15.

Ajoie – ZSC Lions 2:3 nP

ZSC also prevailed in the 4th direct duel with Ajoie, but had to go the full distance for the first time: the game was only decided after the 12th penalty shooter. The 19-year-old “Lion” Vincenz Rohrer converted both of his attempts. In regular time, the bottom team stood up to the leader and even took the lead within 71 seconds in the middle third thanks to a double strike from Thibault Frossard. However, Christian Marti was able to equalize the game again (37th). Thanks to the win, the Lions broke the 100-point mark (101).

Lausanne – Ambri-Piotta 4:1

Thanks to their fourth win in a row, the Lausanne team have taken another step towards direct playoff qualification. Already in the first third, the Vaudois took advantage of two power-number situations to score 2 goals, Michael Raffl and Damien Riat were successful. Johnny Kneubühler brought the Leventiners closer again using a “Buebetrickli”, but in the final third Lausanne also showed themselves efficient in the 3rd power play of the game and scored again in the person of Riat. Raffl also managed a double at the end with an empty netter.