The ZSC Lions cannot use the third match puck either and are defeated by EV Zug 0:2 in the last game in the history of the Hallenstadion. On Sunday evening there will be a decisive game in Zug.
Paved the way for EV Zug: Former ZSC striker Fabrice Herzog.
The ZSC Lions played 26 home games in the qualification. The Hallenstadion was never sold out in this ZSC farewell season after 72 years. But an extraordinary constellation electrified the reserved Zurich audience so much that more than 1,000 francs were paid on the black market for the privilege of being one of 11,200 spectators to attend the sixth play-off final. This definitive, ultimate farewell from Oerlikon. Combined with the chance to secure the championship title at the third attempt. It was set up for an unforgettable evening that should leave the visitors with memories for eternity – that was the hope, the expectation.
Sport often writes kitschy, touching stories. But the ZSC was not granted the ultimate happy ending like something out of a Hollywood script. Zurich lost to EV Zug for the third time in a row. They also missed their third chance to secure their tenth league title and are now at risk of making history for all the wrong reasons: never before has a team in Switzerland missed a 3-0 lead in the play-off final. Even in international sport, this has happened so seldom that the Saola forest cattle, the rarest mammal in the world, has an almost inflationary population.
Dominant Zurich middle third
After just four minutes, ZSC fell behind. The American Justin Azevedo deflected a shot by the Zug striker Fabrice Herzog into his own goal, which was unfavorable and untenable for the goalkeeper Jakub Kovar. The people of Zurich showed a strong, determined reaction. In the middle period it happened that they pinched the opponent in the defensive zone for minutes at times, the shooting ratio was an incredible 17:1. As always, the greatest danger came from the parade line around national strikers Denis Malgin and Sven Andrighetto. But after ZSC had only scored six goals in the last four games, this time none succeeded. Again and again, Zurich players failed because of the insurmountable Zug goalie Leonardo Genoni. The ZSC offensive forces are not the first to threaten to despair in the play-off against Genoni, 34. With six titles, the national goalkeeper is the most successful goalie of the play-off era.
Genoni was Zug’s answer to all Zurich’s ideas, he celebrated his third shutout of this play-off. Due to his par force performance, one of the most mysterious series in Swiss play-off history also broke: the team that scored the first goal lost the game five times in a row in the final. To date, 165 play-off series have been played in a best-of-seven format and only seven times has the team that scored the first goal lost more often than it has won – the equivalent of four percent. That this happened five times in a row had never happened before.
Genoni put an end to this whim of the hockey gods. And can now expand his extensive trophy collection on Sunday. Then the EVZ in Zug in der Belle reaches for the second title in a row.
Does Grönborg find the right tone?
The ZSC is in a delicate situation ahead of this big game. At the beginning of the week he seemed de facto certain of the title, but now a historic shame is looming that would not be so easy to shake off for everyone involved, especially not for coach Rikard Grönborg.
But the truth is, when the series began on April 18, ZSC, which started out as an underdog, could no doubt have been enthusiastic about this scenario: A final decider; the chance to snatch this title away from EVZ, where ZSC has an excellent record in this play-off with six wins from eight games. And: Unlike in the last two comparisons, in which the Zurich team didn’t have that much to oppose their opponent, this time they were certainly not the weaker team, but simply the team blessed with less fortune. The momentum, this fleeting good, has undoubtedly turned in Zug’s favour. But the courageous performance in the Hallenstadion dernière can also inspire confidence for the ZSC. In any case, if coach Grönborg manages to get this team mentally back on track for the big showdown by Sunday. It’s nothing short of the trickiest task of his long coaching career.