EV Zug set standards in Swiss ice hockey and was celebrated champion in 2021 and 2022. But the 3:4 at the start of the play-off quarter-final series against Bern exposed the team’s weaknesses for the first time in recent months.
Ten defeats in the last eleven games: Dan Tangnes and EV Zug cannot find any answers at the moment.
Urs Flueeler / KEYSTONE
Dan Tangnes has been coaching EV Zug for six years, only Luca Cereda from Ambri-Piotta has been in office longer. During this time, the Norwegian has developed such an excellent reputation as a communicator that it is actually astonishing that none of the half-assed raw materials traders in the canton of Zug have recruited him as one of those crisis managers who say to the cameras with a friendly PR smile: “Do it.” We are very sorry that we have poisoned the groundwater, but please also see that the return is correct.
Not that Tangnes, 45, would do that, he’s not an unscrupulous villain. But his communication skills are really above average; in six years in Zug he has practically always hit the right tone. Among other things, when the EVZ was 0-3 behind in the final series against the ZSC Lions in spring 2022. Back then, the coach’s calm and sovereignty had something infectious for his team. Zug was the first team in play-off history to win the final.
With goalkeeper Leonardo Genoni, Zug has only lost in the play-offs twice in five years after a two-goal lead
On April 18, 2022, EVZ lost game 1 at home. It was the only time so far that Zug lost a two-goal lead in the play-offs in the five-year era of seven-time champion goalkeeper Leonardo Genoni. Until Zug lost 3-1 in the final third against Bern on Sunday evening and lost 3-4. It was like someone pulled the plug on this team.
There are still 15 players left from the 2022 championship team, an impressive number actually, but they also include supplementary players and injured players such as national striker Grégory Hofmann, whose season ended in February due to a foot injury.
And in general, a lot of things in Zug no longer seem the same compared to back then. The team struggled to get to the play-offs, losing nine of the final ten qualifying games. The power play was the worst in the league in the regular season and was so poor that Tangnes was asked by the local newspaper at the start of the play-offs whether he actually knew when his team last scored with the majority. And responded with gallows humor: “2008?” It’s not that bad, but it was at the end of January, twelve games ago. The dismissal of power play assistant coach Lars Johansson at the beginning of December does not seem to have had much of an impact in this regard.
Perhaps there is no other way to approach Zug’s concerns than with a pinch of cynicism, but it is striking how changed Tangnes appears recently. In difficult times, he was still far more confident than, for example, the former ZSC coach Rikard Grönborg, but sometimes quite harsh for his standards. Now that the EVZ can no longer find answers on the ice for the first time in its era. In January, for example, he made unusually harsh public criticism when he said: “We are by far the softest team in the league at the moment.”
It is the second difficult season for the club, which was recently setting standards. Last year’s fall to 6th place could be explained by leaden fatigue after two championship titles, but now the difficulties seem to be deeper. They start with a somewhat puzzling transfer policy; The sports director Reto Kläy was obviously under acute pressure to save money when filling the foreign positions, which is not necessarily a slogan that one would have recently associated with this club.
The Swedish striker Andreas Wingerli is symptomatic of the EVZ’s problems with foreigners
The consequence is that the Zug foreign sextet is one of the weakest in the league. Andreas Wingerli, who was signed in the summer, produced 20 points in 49 games. There may be other things in the Swede’s specifications than offensive production, but since the introduction of the play-offs in 1985/86, no foreign EVZ striker who has played at least 35 games has had such a low points average. The attacker Andreas Eder, who was signed from Germany at the end of January, is largely non-existent offensively; on Sunday he missed the empty goal unchallenged when the score was 3-2. And Captain Jan Kovar, Zug’s most important and best field player for the last four years, is hardly recognizable; He only managed 28 points in 47 games, making it his weakest season statistically in 14 years. Kovar is 33 and struggled with a leg injury for a long time in the fall.
Better, more productive foreigners would certainly help, but of course Tangnes would never say that publicly, he is too smart and thoughtful for that, even if his standing, his successes and a contract until 2026 make him untouchable. And the sports department is said to have brought this up several times internally: that there is a risk of the team being cut short. Today Tangnes only says: “It’s no use looking for excuses. We want to make the best of our opportunities. The play-off is about looking forward. This is what we do. There was little missing in Game 1.” When a journalist asked why he didn’t call a time-out in the final third when his team wasted their lead with strange passivity, the coach replied: “There was a power break a few seconds before. I already contacted the team.” And when a second media representative asked whether the players had understood the speech, Tangnes gave the remarkable answer: “I think they couldn’t process it. That’s how it is sometimes in stressful situations.”
Zug often seemed like that in qualifying: like a mentally fragile team that has difficulty dealing with tricky situations. The self-confidence of the championship years, when the team seemingly couldn’t be shaken by anything, seems far, far away.
It is too early for a swansong for the EVZ Edition 2023/24. The top scorer Lino Martschini said defiantly that this defeat would “not throw the team off track at all”. But the opening defeat against an in no way irresistible, erratic SCB could have been the harbinger of a stormy spring in Zug.