Once again SC Bern is disheveled in Zug and is only one defeat away from the end of the season. The coach Jussi Tapola causes irritation with his formations and goalkeeper management.
Unlucky short assignment: SCB goalkeeper Philip Wüthrich on Monday evening in Zug.
Urs Flueeler / KEYSTONE
His team is “schizophrenic,” says Zug coach Dan Tangnes a few minutes after EV Zug defeated SC Bern 6-2. And he adds: “I hope we only show our good faces from now on.” The performances of EVZ, champions of 2021 and 2022, were erratic throughout the winter. They are also in this play-off quarter-final series, but now Zug is ahead with 3-2 wins. Which makes it visibly easier for the coach to accept the moodiness of his team. And to talk about them. He says: “We really weren’t good for 40 minutes in Game 4 on Saturday. But today we showed the right reaction.”
He particularly praised his captain Jan Kovar, who exemplifies the current unpredictability of this team. Kovar, 34, is having his weakest season in 14 years. But on Monday he was Zug’s best player with one goal and two assists. Tangnes says: “He has spoiled us with his achievements over the last few years. He has often struggled this season. I got emails demanding that he be put in the stands. But one should not forget what a strong, reliable player he has been for many years. It’s clear to me that I’ll ride with him to the end.”
A few meters away from Tangnes, SCB coach Jussi Tapola describes his view of things. He seems confident – a 2:3 series deficit is no reason to lose your nerve. Certainly not for a coach who recently became champions in Finland twice in a row with Tappara Tampere and also won the Champions League in 2023.
Foreigner’s license is better for a replacement goalie than for an additional striker
But Tapola currently poses at least as many puzzles as the two faces of EV Zug. The SCB is a team that is not blessed with a lot of squad depth. On Monday, the fourth forward line consisted of Fabian Ritzmann, who produced 15 points in 121 National League appearances, as well as the attackers Dario Kummer and Yanick Sablatnig, who were loaned out from Swiss League partner team Basel. They are brave water carriers. There is nothing to complain about in their performance.
But it’s amazing what Tapola decided to do when setting it up. For the second year in a row, he preferred to use a foreigner’s license for the position of substitute goalkeeper. And keeping the ready-to-play, NHL-proven Corban Knight in the stands. The 33-year-old Knight played for Canada at the Olympic Games in 2022 and is by far the SCB’s best face-off player. His absence weakens the fragile central axis. Tapola explained the decision as follows: “After Saturday’s win, we wanted to stick to the lines. And a play-off game can last 120 minutes, so we want to play with our best goalkeepers.” It’s a rare perspective. In the last championship title from 2019, number 2 was Pascal Caminada. The Zurich player didn’t play a single second in the play-off.
Lack of confidence in SCB goalies
Reideborn’s nomination as number 2 opened up another problem area: it didn’t exactly represent the ultimate vote of confidence in goalkeeper Philip Wüthrich. The relationship between the 26-year-old goalie Wüthrich and the SCB is complicated. The homegrown player was demoted to number 2 behind Adam Reideborn in the summer. He was only given preference in the play-offs as a reaction to Bern’s 1:6 debacle in Game 3. On Monday he was replaced at the first opportunity – after less than 18 minutes; SCB had just conceded 0-2. Wüthrich was not to blame for both goals conceded, which was also confirmed by Tapola, who justified the castling by saying he wanted to wake up the team. The measure had no effect: after just 25 minutes, Zug led 4-0.
It was just a game, sure, but Reideborn and Wüthrich’s self-confidence may not have been in the best of shape after Tapola’s hasty substitutions. Wüthrich’s catch rate in the play-offs is 83.3 percent, Reideborn’s is 84.78 percent. These are miserable values that won’t win a play-off series. Tapola said he didn’t understand the fuss about the goalies. The problem is that the people in front would let the goalkeeper down: “If you give Zug so much space and space, you will concede goals. No matter who is in the goal. We have two good goalkeepers.”
Wüthrich and Reideborn have both already proven this, the latter undoubtedly more diligent – he was a two-time champion in the Russian KHL and played for Sweden in one World Cup and one Olympic tournament. Tapola said he did not yet know who he would bet on on Wednesday. This doesn’t bode well for SCB – if you don’t know which goalie you can rely on in the middle of the play-offs, you have a goalkeeper problem. The people of Bern must hope that Zug schizophrenia will help solve it.
