Regular season
Genève-Servette HC – EHC Biel-Bienne: 1-2 (1-0, 0-2, 0-0)
Vernets ice rink (Geneva), 6,679 spectators. – Arb.: MM. Tscherrig, Wiegand, Fuchs, Urfer.
Buts (SOG: 33-22)
12:19 Hartikainen (Lennström, Bertaggia) 1-0
22:10 Tanner (Allowed) 1-1
32:02 I count (Rajala, Yakovenko) 1-2
The game
Biel does not want to wait for the result from Langnau and prefers to take matters into their own hands from the kick-off. But the desire to put the Genevans under pressure will remain (almost) a dead letter, the Eagles managing the Seattle assaults very well. Even four against five, when Teemu HartikainenThen Josh Jooris were invited by the referees to join the penalty box. The Biennois, already bad in power play, will slowly give centimeters to their opponent to concede the 1 to 0. Enough to allow Hartikainen to score his 8th goal of the season (last year, at this stage of the season, he had… twenty more!) and not to highlight too many Geneva errors which could have allowed the EHCB to return to the locker room with a parity score.
An equalizer that the visitors would obtain from the restart (22:10, Ramon Tanner) on an unfortunate deviation from Mike Völlmin in his own cage. Gauthier Descloux, starting for the first time this evening since November 28, could only see the damage. Too bad because Descloux put in a great performance in front of his net this evening. However, he will not be able to avoid the 1-2 ten minutes later, with a good gesture of Luca Conti. Geneva is disconcerted, Bienne regains color. At this point in the evening, he knows that Langnau is losing 1-0 in Zurich and that he will be in play-in. Even better: in front of Geneva!
And precisely, the Eagles do not want to finish in a less than satisfactory 10th place, very far from the standing of European champions. The debates become tense and the Eagles gain the upper hand as the minutes pass, but the men of Martin Steinegger do not hide and always wait for the right opportunity to deliver the final blow. That will be for another time, because the main thing is elsewhere: no goal will be scored in this final period and Bienne wins in Geneva and qualifies for the play-ins. To play against… Geneva which will finish in 10th place in the ranking for having been less efficient during the direct duels against the EHCB. We will therefore be entitled, over two matches, to a rematch of the last final!
The pre-match