The people of Zug were carefree for a long time, but the last five games resulted in defeats. But the bear market can be explained, there are many reasons for it.
The load is too high: Zug goalie Leonardo Genoni (centre) has already completed 29 games.
There is a long window of freedom behind EV Zug. Since the club hired Dan Tangnes as coach in 2018, there have been no more sporting difficulties; EVZ won the cup in 2019 and the championship in 2021 and 2022. Now sand has gotten into the gears: The 3:4 against Davos on Saturday was the fourth defeat in the last five games, Zug is eighth and has collected a single point more than promoted Kloten.
This is a meager yield in view of the luxury squad that the people of Zug afford, but the bear market can be explained and has many reasons. One of them is that EVZ pays a high price for not being able to draw on a pool of players in the form of a Swiss League farm team. Goalie number 2 Luca Hollenstein has been injured for weeks, as has Thibault Fatton, who is on loan from Lugano. And Tangnes obviously trusts the 18-year-old elite junior goalies Alessio Brun and Valentino Zaetta so little at the moment that Leonardo Genoni had to play through the 7-3 draw in Bern on Friday.
This in a game that was decided after 36 minutes with a score of 1:5. Genoni, 36, has already played 29 games for EVZ, the load is too high. What is reflected in the performances: With little more than 88 percent, the six-time champion goalie has the lowest catch rate of all number 1 goalkeepers. It also doesn’t help that the most important defender, Niklas Hansson, is injured – and that attacker Justin Abdelkader, who had been transparent in his second EVZ guest appearance, was signed as a replacement instead of strengthening the porous defence.
The personnel concerns also endanger the first major goal of the season: the Champions Hockey League. CEO Patrick Lengwiler said they wanted to “finally win a title at international level”. On Tuesday, after a 2-2 draw in the Czech Republic, EVZ welcomes the outsider Mountfield to the second leg of the quarter-finals. Leonardo Genoni will have to play again.
Zug – Davos 3: 4 (1: 2, 1: 1, 1: 0, 0: 1) aet 7200 spectators. – Referee: Stolc (SVK)/Tscherrig, Fuchs/Urfer. – Gates: 1. (0:47) Nordstrom (Ambühl, Rasmussen) 0: 1. 12. Corvi (Nordstrom, Stransky) 0-2. 14. Hofmann (Simion) 1:2. 22nd Duke (Djoos) 2-2. 24. Nordstrom 2:3. 60. (59:45) Geisser (Martschini, Kovar) 3: 3 (without goalkeeper). 64. Ambühl (Nordstrom) 3: 4 (into the empty goal). – Punish: 5 times 2 minutes against Zug, 3 times 2 minutes against Davos. – PostFinance top scorer: Kovar; Stranky.
national league. Qualification. Saturday: Ambri-Piotta – SCL Tigers 2-1 (1-0, 0-1, 1-0). Biel – Ajoie 6: 2 (1: 0, 3: 1, 2: 1). Fribourg-Gottéron 2-3 Berne (0-0, 2-1, 0-2). Kloten – Geneva/Servette 3:0 (1:0, 0:0, 2:0). Lausanne 2-0 ZSC Lions (0-0, 2-0, 0-0). Lugano – Rapperswil-Jona Lakers 0: 4 (0: 0, 0: 1, 0: 3). Zug 3-4 Davos (1-2, 1-1, 1-0, 0-1) a.e.t. – Ranking: 1. Geneva/Servette 29/62. 2. Biel 29/59. 3. ZSC Lions 27/53. 4. Rapperswil-Jona Lakers 29/49. 5. Berne 29/46. 6.Davos 28/45. 7th train 27/41. 8. Fribourg-Gottéron 25/39. 9. Kloten 29/39. 10. SCL Tigers 29/37. 11. Lugano 27/35. 12. Ambri-Piotta 29/35. 13.Lausanne 29/34. 14. Ajoie 30/20.