Lausanne takes an early lead at the start of the play-off final in Zurich. But again the ZSC doesn’t fall. Disturbing this collective seems impossible.
Starting signal for the turnaround: Yannick Weber scores to make it 1-1.
Michael Buholzer / Keystone
When mass had long since been said on this Tuesday evening, shortly after 10 p.m., the ZSC Lions were able to take care of the details. Striker Chris Baltisberger was asked whether he had deflected the puck when defenseman Yannick Weber, who was listed as the official goalscorer, scored to equalize 1-1 shortly before the middle of the game. Yes, said Baltisberger, but he quickly added these words: “It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s a goal.”
It wasn’t artificial selflessness that spoke from Baltisberger, but rather genuine disinterest. Individual goal and point bonuses have hardly existed in ice hockey for a long time, which makes it easier to forgo personal merits.
In the 1990s it was still common practice for players from Canada to ask for assists after games, and players from Canada were notorious for this. In the ZSC today only the goalkeepers receive bonuses for shutouts, in the play-offs they double. Part of this goes into obligatory gifts for the people in front: ZSC goalie Simon Hrubec finances donuts for the entire team.
It’s small good deeds like this that help build solidarity. And they play a part in the fact that the ZSC appears as such a conspired unit these days that everything that stands in its way seems to bounce off of it.
There are still two wins missing from HC Davos’ play-off record from the 2010/11 season
As in the quarter-finals against Biel and the semi-finals against Zug, the ZSC was initially behind at the start of the play-off final against Lausanne. But what makes the ZSC special in spring 2024 is that it is apparently hardly possible to make this collective nervous: Coach Marc Crawford’s team acts with the coolness of a champion.
Zurich wasn’t the better team on Tuesday. And yet they won for the ninth time in a row. The winning goal was once again scored by Canadian Derek Grant, who scored for the ninth time after a solo run across half the field. Grant’s finish didn’t seem untenable, but that shouldn’t be his concern.
They are series that have something uncanny about them: Grant’s and ZSC’s. A perfect play-off, twelve wins in a row, has never happened before in Switzerland. The record is set by record champions HC Davos, who won eleven times in a row in 2010/11 before a flash in the pan from their final opponent Kloten extended the season by a few days.
The ZSC doesn’t care about the brand, it’s about the tenth championship title in the club’s history and not about the freestyle. It doesn’t matter whether the three wins that are still needed are achieved in three or six games. «We weren’t particularly good. And Lausanne will certainly perform even stronger at home,” said Weber. It is the understatement that belongs to the play-offs. Nobody wants to motivate their opponent with thoughtless statements and a hint of arrogance.
The current irresistibility of the ZSC is due to the fact that this team is not only a lot better staffed than its competitors. But also appears noticeably more relaxed. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone given how routine the squad is.
Lausanne HC has three players, Christian Djoos, Fabian Heldner and Ronalds Kenins, who have already become champions in Switzerland. For Lausanne it is the first play-off final in the club’s history; you cannot simulate this experience.
At ZSC there are eight players who have already been champions: the Baltisberger brothers, the defenders Patrick Geering and Christian Marti and the attackers Simon Bodenmann, Denis Hollenstein, Reto Schäppi and Yannick Zehnder. Weber has also already been in the Stanley Cup Final, and he doesn’t tremble in the moments when everything is at stake. He says: “If you don’t feel nervous or tense before games like this, you’re in the wrong place. But to me it feels more like anticipation.”
Former NHL regular Yannick Weber is waiting for the crowning glory of his career
Weber will be 36 years old in September and is in the late autumn of his impressive career, which lasted 13 years and included over 500 appearances in the NHL. He is still waiting for a title; When he returned to Switzerland from North America in the summer of 2021, he also chose the ZSC because he believed that there would be the best prospects for refining his palmarès.
Two years ago against EV Zug, a win was missing before ZSC gave up a 3-0 lead in the final. But Weber rightly says: “That was a different year, different teams, a different group. We weren’t necessarily the favorites back then either.”
Now things are different, since the first face-off in September, ZSC has been the number one contender for the title. He has so far fulfilled this role confidently; The team is on the verge of celebrating something like a start/finish victory.
The question is how the ZSC collective would deal with a setback, a defeat. But with every match day, a scenario that would not be considered possible in modern times becomes more realistic: that the answer to this has to be found in some parallel universe, because the ZSC is simply rolling unstoppably through the play-offs in the here and now.