For the first time since the championship title of 2018, the ZSC Lions are back in the play-off final. They also win the fourth game against a headless Gottéron, this time comfortably 6-2. And as the first team since HC Davos 2014/15 to end a semi-final series without defeat.
Celebrating the sixth win in a row: The ZSC pros around defender Yannick Weber (right).
Four years have passed since the ZSC Lions were in the playoff finals. A lot has happened since then: The club hired the coaching guru Arno Del Curto and slid with him to the placement round. The ZSC built a new stadium in Altstetten and is preparing to say goodbye to the Hallenstadion after 72 years. A pandemic made him play games behind closed doors for months. In 2020 the playoff was canceled.
They weren’t particularly successful years for this proud club, spoiled by success; the dominant theme has almost always been: How can a team so expensive, the most expensive in the league, so consistently underperform? How can she lose games against Ajoie and the SCL Tigers? The 2021 cup final against a badly troubled SC Bern? And even a few weeks ago, in the play-off, against a severely decimated EHC Biel.
There were neck blows and disappointments that make the present moments taste a little sweeter. The ZSC is back in the final, he is reaching for the tenth title in the club’s history.
Gottéron problematic age structure
On Thursday, Zurich won in the fourth comparison with Gottéron for the fourth time, it was a gala performance against an opponent who revealed signs of dissolution. And who added another disappointment to his untitled club history: Dandy Christian Dubé, who works in a dual mandate as coach and sports director, upgraded this team with a lot of effort and money. And yet it was the first team in seven years to lose a semi-final series without a win. At that time, HC Davos had outclassed SC Bern and then stormed to the last title of the Del Curto era. The question is how long the title window of this aging Freiburg team can remain open: goalkeeper Reto Berra is 36, defender Raphael Diaz and captain Julien Sprunger are each 37. Strong defender Philippe Furrer, 36, is retiring.
These are worries that ZSC does not know – its two by far most important individuals, strikers Sven Andrighetto and Denis Malgin, have not yet reached the age of 30. For once, the congenial duo didn’t need to shine to bring about the decision. Both remained without a scorer point in this first victory in the regular season in this series, but Simon Bodenmann and Marc Aeschlimann, who mostly parked for the GCK Lions, both scored twice. ZSC scored four goals in the middle third alone and rushed out of reach. After the third goal conceded, Gottéron lacked the belief in a turnaround – especially since the Canadian top scorer Chris DiDomenico had long since been sent to the shower to trip.
LaOla in Oerlikon
The ZSC coach Rikard Grönborg had surprisingly changed his collective and replaced the undefeated goalkeeper Ludovic Waeber with the recovered Czech Jakub Kovar. Striker Joel Quenneville had to make way for Kovar, but that didn’t hurt ZSC’s power. And it didn’t matter that Kovar didn’t look his best when David Desharnais equalised. Four minutes before the end, he was replaced by Waeber at his own request. He started the series and should therefore end it, Kovar argued. It was a nice gesture from the veteran.
The ZSC rushed into the final completely unchallenged, they were able to let themselves be celebrated by an enraptured audience in the sold-out Hallenstadion, in the last third even with extensive La Ola waves. It was an exuberant evening in Oerlikon – but on the mission to win the championship title it shouldn’t have been more than an intermediate stage. From Monday, the ZSC will challenge the champions and title favorites EVZ. It’s a spectacular, worthy finale; the comparison between the two most complete teams in the league.