swisshockey.net

After the ZSC Lions shocking exit in one quarterfinal, comes this, even bigger upset. Regular season champions SC Bern lost the sixth game of their playoff series with EV Zug on Monday night and are eliminated from the Swiss National League A playoffs. Incredibly, this is the second year in a row Bern has won the regular season crown only to exit in the first round of the playoffs (Fribourg pulled the upset last year). With Davos and Lugano due for a deciding seventh game Thursday, we could conceivably have three lower-seeded teams in the semifinals (third-seeded Kloten Flyers is so far the only favorite to advance. They swept Servette Geneva).
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A major (and unexpected, at least from us) upset in the first round of the 2009 Swiss National League A playoffs: second-seed and defending champion ZSC Lions were swept by seventh-seeded Fribourg-Gotteron. These are the same ZSC Lions who won the inaugural edition of the Champions Hockey League in January, which made them (at least until this) the defacto best ice hockey club in Europe.

The end came Thursday night in Fribourg and was largely the work of one man: Julien Sprunger, a 2004 NHL Entry Draft pick of the Minnesota Wild, who scored all three goals, including the match-winner in overtime. Read more…

The Swiss National League A completed its 50-game regular season over the weekend, leaving eight teams to battle for the championship via best-of-seven game playoff series. The four teams that did not qualify for the playoffs will play a so-called “play-out” to determine who has to play the National League B champion for the final spot in next season’s top flight.
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Swisshockey.net caught up with Mark Streit in the New York Islanders locker room after the team’s game at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night, Feb. 18. Streit’s Islander’s lost a hard-fought encounter to the New York Rangers, 3-1, their fourth loss in five “New York derby” games this season. Despite the loss, Streit had reason to be upbeat: playing in just his second game since returning from an upper body injury that sidelined him for five games, the Englisberg (BE) native scored the Islanders’ lone goal of the encounter, his 10th on the season. More importantly, he said there was no lingering discomfort from the injury. In an interview conducted in English (when other reporters were present) and Swiss-German (when they were not), Streit spoke of his fondness for New York and some of the differences between the Swiss game and the North American one, among other things.

swisshockey.net: First of all, congratulations on your goal (click for video, courtesy of nhl.com), which temporarily tied the game 1-1 in the first period. You had a lot of room to come in there and take the pass.

Streit: Looked like that. They collapsed somehow [defensively] and I was wide open. Read more…

Well that was quick! Less than a week after sending him to the minor leagues to get playing time, the Dallas Stars plan to recall Tobias Stephan from Bridgeport, Conn., of the American Hockey League. The 25-year old Zurich native will be recalled Feb. 23, Stars co-GM Les Jackson told the Dallas Morning News. Does this mean Stephan, who has started only three games for the Stars, will actually get playing time in Big D?
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Zurich’s ZSC Lions lost their second first game after the historic Champions Hockey League finale over Metallurg Magnitogorsk and now have to count on outside help if they are going to capture the Swiss National League’s regular season crown–and the automatic qualification to next season’s CHL tournament that comes with it. ZSC were routed by SC Bern 5-0 last night in front of 15,804 spectators at Bern’s PostFinance Arena. Patrick Baertschi, a 2002 draft pick (seventh round) of the Pittsburgh Penguins, put the hosts on the board after only 45 seconds. ZSC were able to stem the tied for the rest of the first period, but a pair of goals in the middle period (by Martin Gelinas, he of the infamous 1988 trade that sent Wayne Gretzky to Los Angeles, and Martin Pluess) put the game out of reach. The “Bears” added two goals in the third period, one through fourth line center Etienne Froidevaux, who is a candidate for selection in this year’s NHL Entry Draft (Pascal Berger, who is also on the short-list of Swiss NHL prospects, assisted).
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Then there were two. The Dallas Stars are expected to assign Tobias Stephan to the minor leagues today, leaving Jonas Hiller and Mark Streit as the only two Swiss nationals in the National Hockey League. Stephan has just three starts this year behind Marty Turco. The Dallas Morning News Stars reports that Stephan will be sent to the Bridgeport (Conn.) Sound Tigers of the American Hockey League today to allow the 25-year old to get some playing time. Bridgeport is the affiliate for the New York Islanders and has three games in three days this weekend. The Stars are then expected recall Brent Krahn from the AHL’s Chicago Wolves to fulfill backup duties.
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Jonas Hiller continues to start in the Anaheim Ducks goal, though unlike his last trip to Minnesota, Wednesday night’s game is one he’ll probably rather forget. On the East coast, Mark Streit was reevaluated and his injury not deemed serious enough to warrant anything beyond a “day to day” update.
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Apologies for the scarcity of posts. I was preoccupied with Adam Graves Night (subtitle: Heart of a Ranger) at Madison Square Garden yesterday. It was a great event that was unfortunately ruined by the ensuing hockey game, which the New York Rangers lost to the Atlanta Thrashers in a shootout. No Swiss guys in action for either team of course (but Tobias Stephan and the Dallas Stars visit MSG on Friday. I hope to be there for that). As for that “other” New York team, which actually plays out in Long Island, the Islanders last night were forced to play the entire third period without their best player but overcame Mark Streit’s absence to beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 3-1. Streit previously scored what turned out to be the encounter’s game-winning goal. was sidelined with an upper-body injury. He is pending reevaluation today. We will of course keep you abreast of the situation.

The Philadelphia Flyers on Monday announced that 19-year old defenseman Luca Sbisa would be reassigned to the Lethbridge Hurricanes of the Western Hockey League. The move clears cap room for the Flyers to reactivate center Danny Briere when he returns from injury. More importantly, it allows Sbisa to get regular ice time–something he was clearly not getting in Philadelphia, where he was a healthy scratch six of the Flyers’ last seven games.

In an interview posted to the Flyers’ official blog yesterday, Sbisa did not conceal his disappointment, but added he was looking forward to seeing ice time again. “I am really looking forward to playing a lot of minutes there, play the power play, [penalty kill] and the last minutes of a game. I kind of missed that stuff,” he said in the interview.

We can certainly sympathize with Sbisa. He goes from chartered air travel and luxury hotels in North America’s greatest cities, including several he probably has not seen before, to buses and motels in places Read more…