Playoff
is the most beautiful time of the hockey-year because it seems that nobody
keeps calm and composed anymore. All actors (players, coaches, staff, fans and
media-guys) seem to be on “cocaine”, acting like volcanoes, forget about
respectful behaviour and – of course – know all the time why this team did lose
and that team did win. Heroes and scapegoats everywhere (players, coaches,
refs, judges, federation-staff and you name it).
Remembering
the quarterfinals in the Swiss playoffs I noticed that in game 1 Geneva was
noticeably better than Zug but did lose in the end. Lausanne completely
dominated Davos in the early going but in both series the clearly weaker team
in the very beginning did win the series with a sweep. Bern was slightly better than Biel, Zurich
did lose to Lugano although they played a bit better than Lugano. A lot of rah,
rah, rah in terms of referees, judges and with Philippe Furrer even a player
who raised his voice and complained about weird decisions on and off the ice.
Entertainment-level 10 out of 10. Level of composed analysing with a cool head
and a warm heart: 1 out of 10.
Here
a small recap of what I did read and listen:
Zug,
the team what was called too soft with a weak and too friendly, emotionless,
conservative coach did hire some big, physical players and did win the
quarterfinal vs Geneva and this although some people did think this series will
be a bye… for… Geneva. So, this weak coach with a “bye-team” did just manage a
sweep vs Geneva. The coach now gets some praise because of his composed style, calm
and relaxed behaviour and he emotions always under control… ;-) The no-emotion
coach was the hero because he stayed calm, composed and relaxed also in the
hottest game-situations.
Zurich,
the team what was called too soft, did also hire some bigger and physical
players, very similar to Zug and completely failed in the playoffs. They also
have a composed and no-emotions-head-coach but in this case he got criticized
for not shouting, not showing emotions, for not kicking the a.. of his players
and you name it. The no-emotion coach was a scapegoat because he didn’t shout
enough.
Majority
opinion was that Geneve is a typical playoff-team with a typical playoff-coach:
Strong, physical, sneaky and a coach who knows all the clean and not so clean
tricks to win games and series. A coach who always inspires his players with
his highly emotional behaviour on the bench. But now… after losing… he is now
also a scapegoat. “He did lose control and this did also influence the
behaviour of the players”. “His choleric way of coaching did destroy the cool
heads of the players” and “this hot temper is contra-productive in the relation
with the refs…”
Lugano
was always heavily criticized because of just recruiting high-maintenance
star-players without warrior-mentality and routinely firing coaches but now
they got praised exactly for this… “they did bravely block much more shots than
Zurich”, “Greg Ireland did outcoach Hans Wallson”. By the way it’s always the
weaker team who blocks more shots. If you always have the puck you can’t block
shots, you don’t need to block shots…
In
Davos there is now euphoria everywhere and this so much that even bad players
get praised with the support of some sort of weird stats. It seems that if you
win, everything, really everything is just fine and if you lose everything is
bad and this atmosphere is sometimes even pushed from people I usually respect
as really bright brains. In the
playoff-emotions even the smartest guys seem to lose the cool head… but – of
course – nothing better than this in terms of media-entertainment.
The
coaching-god in Lausanne (please don’t get me wrong, I really like him!) with
the best power-play all of a sudden has to explain why they did allow a sweep
and the winners of course know exactly why they did win: They did work harder,
they wanted the victory more, they showed more character and tons of word bubbles
like this… and in all comments we will always find the most fashionable
word-creation “Leistungskultur” – I can’t really translate in English, I guess
some sort of performance-culture or so... Means a team, a coach has to bring a
Leistungskultur into a franchise. Well… 100 out of 100 coaches will declare and
honestly believe that they do exactly this… of course with different
explanations what they mean with a “Leistungskultur”… The loser – of course –
didn’t have a “Leistungskultur” but the winner of course had… life seems to be sometimes sooooo easy… ;-)
Zurich,
Lausanne and Geneva were lacking leaders (hmmm… Zurich has probably one of the
best leaders you can imagine, Mathias Seger) but – of course – he couldn’t play
his role anymore now because he carried too many problems with himself… and in
Bern, Lugano and Davos we immediately declare grey-mice-players to successful quiet
leaders – of course just “experts” notice their leadership-qualities… ;-) mostly
players we have difficulties to describe because they usually hide a bit their
performance or are simply… yes, you’re right… not so good players ;-)
So,
of course, all wins and all defeats have certain logic, everybody seems always
exactly to know why this teams did win and that team did lose. Just strange
enough that these “logics” always get presented after the games and never
before… In a way it’s very funny: Some of the players, coaches,
sporting-directors and also some of the media-people and of course tons of fans
want to make us believe that a completely unclear world is very clear, year
after year. That’s why not successful playoff-teams will change their coach
from a soft, so called “player-developer” to a “my way or high-way shouting
hardliner” or the other way round. I would bet some money that the Lions next
coach will be in the mold of a Kevin Schläpfer type of coach, after this a
NHL-coach again, followed by a soft spoken Scandinavian guy… In Geneva it’s now time for a soft spoken
gentleman and in Zug they know now that it was the right decision to fire
Harold Kreis after two disappointing seasons and replace him with an outgoing,
wild performing bench-coach… Oh sorry, I might have mixed up something, I guess
Zug didn’t change their coach after two disappointing series… but please
quickly forget about this, this doesn’t fit into our simple world of
“hockey-wisdoms”… ;-)
So
I did bash now a little bit with a winking-eye comments of players, coaches, sporting-directors,
fans and media-guys. This would be unfair if I don’t give my readers the chance
to bash me. That’s why I present you my opinion about all these
quarterfinal-results but if you look for simple explanations then please stop
to read here – there won’t be any.
My
opinion (my opinion is based on 45 years experience as a hockey-observer, 20
years experience as a hockey-scout, reading a lot about hockey and discussing
hockey with people I learn a lot from):
Bern
did deserve the win vs Biel, they were slightly better but the 4-1 series-outcome
is a too clear result. Following the games a 4-2 or 4-3 series win for Bern
would have been the more logical outcome. Some unlucky plays and one unlucky
call influenced the results in favour of the favourite. Bern played solid but
to be honest I’m not really excited yet with Bern at this point. I have the
feeling that Bern was in the regular-season and now also in the quarterfinal a
bit overrated. But of course they still remain one of the contenders, they have
solid goaltending and a solid defense plus probably the best
import-player-package in the league. Bern did win the series because of 50%
having the better team and 50% puck-luck.
In
the series ZSC vs Lugano Zurich had the slight edge, they were a bit better
than Lugano and should have won this series. Compared to last year Zurich
suffered a significant loss of skills. Ok, you can’t blame anybody not being
able to replace Auston Matthews, but the too easy goodbye of Cunti was a unnecessary
risk but – if the key-players stay healthy – they still had a good skilled
team. But then happened what exactly was not allowed to happen. Robert Nilsson
got injured… so Zurich was without Matthews,
Cunti and Nilsson – they did lose tons of skills. Yes, the trivial rhetoric
started now to drop in: “Other players have to step up” “in the playoffs you don’t need fancy players
like Cunti or Nilsson, we need warriors and we have them with Baltisberger,
Schaeppi, Marti, Kenins, Sjögren, Geering and the experienced Seger and many
more”. In addition Zurich made the huge mistake not to hire a 5th
import-player, this I really believe was a big and not easily explainable
mistake. So Zurich did make mistakes but was still slightly better but missing
puck-luck did end their season too early. Lugano didn’t impress me too much
except Merzlikins. He played a pretty poor regular-season but was besides Zug’s
McIntyre the star-player of the quarterfinals.
In
the Zug-Series in the first game Geneva would have deserved the win but Geneva
faltered completely after that. Zug was very unlucky in the series vs Lugano
last year early on and now exactly the opposite… and if Saul Miller makes them
mistakenly ;-) believe that this first game was not luck but because of their
mental strength – they will ride now on a very positive momentum-wave. I really
like McIntyre and I just love Martschini plus it was clear that the return of
Diaz will push them further ahead, he was probably the most important transfer
in the league this season. Zug has a very good team and good coaches.
I
was surprised that Davos swept Lausanne, I expected a tighter series. That Davos
will win in the end has certain logic, they simply have the better players than
Lausanne. Davos has the best Swiss players in the roster of all teams besides
the ZSC Lions if Nilsson is not injured plus they have the at least average
goaltending you need to be successful. They play a simple, attractive, clear
style of hockey what brings them on a very high wave in positive momentums but
makes them vulnerable in negative momentums because they usually can’t adapt
their style. Right now they are riding on a positive wave and this makes them
very dangerous. But there is also critic: Besides Lindgren they just have an
average import-player-package at best. What about Lausanne? There were so many
explainable reasons why Lausanne was that good. Ok, maybe they just looked
explainable on first sight because in the playoffs most of these reasons seemed
to be just disappeared. This is hockey, this is the not so clear world! But
yes, don’t overrate playoff-analyses. A smart analyses covers the whole season,
so don’t worry about Lausanne.
What
will come in the semis nobody knows. The puck-luck-factor is too big to ignore,
in games between these four teams who play on a similar level he even becomes
again more important. So I come to my very “brave” prediction: The luckiest
team of the trio Zug, Bern and Davos will be champion. Lugano is slightly
behind in my eyes and needs even more luck to win.
To
explain my “wisdom” in small words: Players, coaches and sporting-directors are
not being paid and judged according to their performance. They are getting
judged because of their success. And success in life is performance plus luck.
In a hockeyleague I would guess it’s 30% performance and 70% luck, at least for
teams with similar budgets. I know that 95% of the readers don’t agree with it,
they still might think that the world is clear and we can control it… but it’s
not…
One
final sentence to the referees and judges: They often have to take decisions in
unclear situations where it’s actually impossible to decide… but they have to…
plus: Forget about the claim of justice, justice is a word bubble that no one
can really match. So please be nice to our refs and judges, appreciate and
respect their job.
So,
time to bash me, my helmet is on J
Thomas
Horgen,
19th March 2017 RuleTheRoostPayoff190317
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