The Lions won this evening in overtime against HC Fribourg-Gottéron at the Vaudoise arena. The post-match is brought to you by our main partner, Vaudoise insurance.
Clear domination at the start of the match then difficulties
For almost 30 minutes, our Lions will largely dominate the match by combining defensive solidity and offensive realism. At the start of the first third, Jiri Sekac received a 2+2 minute penalty for a high cane. A very delicate situation when we know the effectiveness of the Dragons’ powerplay, but our players did not lower their intensity and thwarted all the opposing attempts.
At the end of these 4 minutes of numerical inferiority, Michael Raffl goes directly on the counterattack and deceives Reto Berra. After breaking the deadlock, Geoff Ward’s men seem liberated and continue with numerous attempts. When the second third resumes, it’s Jiri Sekac who doubles the lead in powerplay! The number 92 will then have the opportunity to score a second goal after a very good serve from Théo Rochette, but the Czech striker unfortunately missed the target!
After this failure, Christian Dubé’s men seem to have a second wind and are much more insistent in front of Connor Hughes. With this drop in pace, Joël Genazzi’s teammates will see their opponents come back twice in the match to snatch extra time!
Extension
Some fans of both teams may still remember the long clashes between the two teams during the 2021-22 season where 3 of the 5 games in the series ended in overtime. Again today when at the end of the 60th minute, the score displayed on the videotron was still 2-2.
In the regular season, overtime is only played for 5 minutes and 3 against 3 on the ice in addition to the goalkeepers. A formula that allows you to create space and go through a penalty shootout to decide between the two teams. In the final phase the formula is different, the 20-minute overtime periods follow one another until a winning goal is scored.
It is clear that the fans of the Vaudoise arena were upset this evening as the final decision took so long to arrive. We had to wait until the 107th minute in the third overtime period to see the inevitable Jason Fuchs score the winning goal on a good serve from Robin Kovacs. A saving goal which liberates the Lausanne public and which allows the Lions to equalize at 1-1 in the series!
The evolution of the score
11th Michael Raffl (Djoos) 1-0; 25th Jiri Sekac 2-0; 32nd Marcus Sörensen (Gunderson) 1-2; 36th Ryan Gunderson (Sörensen) 2-2; 107th Jason Fuchs (Kovacs) 3-2.
Team composition:
- Guardians: Connor Hughes; Kevin Easter
- Defenders: Christian Djoos, Andrea Glauser; Luke Frick, Fabian Heldner; Joel Genazzi, Lawrence Pilot; Igor Jelovac
- Attackers: Jiri Sekac, Antti Suomela, Théo Rochette; Robin Kovacs, Jason Fuchs, Damien Riat; Michael Raffl, Ken Jaeger, Tim Bozon; Marco Pedretti, Makai Holdener, Ronalds Kenins; Michael Hügli
The rest of the series
After this Act II, the two teams will meet again this Saturday April 6 at the BCF Arena before returning to the Lausanne public on Monday April 8. Following this victory, the two teams are guaranteed to play Act V at the BCF Arena on Wednesday April 10!