Geneva/Servette, as title holders, is only the fourth team in the play-off era to not make it into the top 8. Failure had been announced; there were too many construction sites in the Geneva collective.
Empty looks instead of the next title hunt: The Geneva/Servette season ended prematurely on Saturday.
Peter Schneider / KEYSTONE
It’s remarkable how quickly things can move in sport. Less than three weeks ago, Jan Cadieux led Geneva/Servette to triumph in the Champions Hockey League. In April 2023 he achieved the first championship title in the club’s history. But now, at an advanced hour on March 9th, sports director Marc Gautschi is asked whether Cadieux, 43, will still be Servette coach when the new season begins in September.
Servette has just played 2-2 in Biel, which means that the title holders will not make it into the last eight teams for only the fourth time in the 39-year history of the play-off mode. SC Bern had previously suffered this disgrace in 2014 and 2020 as well as the ZSC Lions in 2019; The phenomenon of “master blues” is real. It’s a dangerous combination when a false sense of security mixes with tiredness and a hint of frugality.
In Servette’s case it was a failure, certainly, but one that became apparent. The Geneva team is the second oldest team in the league behind Ajoie. After the season for the ages last winter, it seemed early on that this collective was lacking freshness, both physically and mentally. Last year’s top scorer Teemu Hartikainen sorely missed his departed strike partner Linus Omark, and his goal production fell from 28 to 8 goals. Hartikainen has appeared similarly helpless “like a fish on land” in recent months, says a local observer.
Defense chief Henrik Tömmernes, who had left for Frölunda, was missing everywhere, especially since his designated replacement Theodor Lennström missed two thirds of the qualification with an injury. And the performances of the goalkeeper duo Gauthier Descloux/Robert Mayer were so dissolute that Servette signed Finnish national goalie Jussi Olkinuora in December.
There will be new blood at Servette in at least two foreign positions
Compared to the previous season, Servette scored 45 fewer goals and received 15 more, a difference of 60 goals. The consequence was 10th place and going into the play-in. Biel was the final destination there, last year’s opponent in the final. “We didn’t squander our play-off chances today, but rather with the bad start to the season,” said Gautschi, but that’s only partially true. Servette missed leads in both play-in games, even winning 2-0 on Saturday. Given how much routine this team has, it was astonishing how little order there was in the Geneva game.
A long summer awaits the club – and a few changes. The 39-year-old Canadian Daniel Winnik is retiring, and it wouldn’t offend him if he said he should have done so a year ago. In 39 games, Winnik only produced 13 points, and he never came close to the speed that had made him one of the most feared, roughest power wings in Europe in his first five years in the National League. The contract of the almost 40-year-old center Valtteri Filppula, Finland’s only member of the triple gold club (Stanley Cup victory, Olympic and World Cup gold), will not be extended. The future of Sakari Manninen and Teemu Hartikainen is open.
Interestingly, there is no change in the goalie position; Servette is once again relying on the Descloux/Mayer duo, who have been missing out on practically everything in the last few months. Mayer, 34, a celebrated champion goalkeeper a year ago, played a season to forget, his defense rate was a desolate 86.82 percent. It is astonishing that the national coach Patrick Fischer gave him preference over the established Leonardo Genoni in the lost World Cup quarter-finals in Riga in May 2023. Gautschi says: “It wasn’t easy for our goalies. We allowed the fewest shots in the league. But there are a lot of top-class opportunities. It’s difficult for any goalkeeper to achieve good statistics.”
Actually, that’s the story of this Servette season: a lot of talent, little consistency, noticeably little stability. It is said that coach Cadieux was not always able to hide his frustration with the blatant fluctuations in performance, which led to tensions internally. Nevertheless, it is largely inconceivable that Cadieux will be farewelled: he has achieved too much in a short time. And Servette is too conservative with costs – the pressure to save money from the “Fondation 1890”, which controls both clubs, is also noticeable in football.
And yet: under the leadership of patron Didier Fischer, Geneva is now more successful than ever before in major public sports. Champions League victory and championship title in ice hockey, European moments of glory as well as soft championship and cup winning dreams in football, where coach René Weiler manages to conceal the enormous budget deficits of the series champion Young Boys.
EHC Biel is a potentially very dangerous quarter-final opponent for the ZSC Lions
And the prospects of success in ice hockey remain favorable despite the poor infrastructure. Practically all Swiss top performers are committed to a long-term contract, and Servette will also be expected to make a few adjustments to the foreigners in 2024/25.
It is not certain whether the same can be said about EHC Biel. The club is facing a mass exodus: at least six regular players will move on, including pioneer Beat Forster, who is ending his impressive career at 41.
For the core that has carried this team further in recent years than most observers thought possible, this is the last dance. The Biel team also had a terrible season for long stretches – and even fired coach Petri Matikainen three rounds before the end of qualifying. It seems as if the team can draw strength from this measure and also from the certainty that this is the last chance for the big hit.
From Monday onwards, Biel will duel with Ambri-Piotta as the clear favorite for the final play-off place. The winner will have a quarter-final rendezvous with the ZSC Lions. Biel would be a dangerous opponent for the sovereign qualification winners ZSC: In 2023/24, the Zurich team failed without a sound in the semi-finals against this opponent, and a year earlier they showed a lot of effort in the quarter-finals, which they won 4-3. In any case, ZSC coach Marc Crawford must be worried about how the Biel team has picked up speed under interim coach Martin Steinegger.