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WC: 2016 Team Switzerland

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He definitely would be here and share the games with Berra. He was elected best goalie in the league last season.

It's the third year in a row he declines. Just speculating, but maybe he didn't like being number 3 at the 2013 WC and 2014 OG?
 
Yeah, looks like. Martschini could play with Ambühl and Hollenstein.

Schäppi and Marti are the ones not registered.
 
Martschini as the finisher on the ambühl looks good on paper.

Schäppi will get his minutes when they'll face tougher competition, I guess, unless injuries strike the D and one of the remaining NA based D gets available.

I think this year the WHC field is quite level, I see only CAN and FIN ahead of the rest on paper...
How you see it?
 
duga said:
Martschini as the finisher on the ambühl looks good on paper.

Schäppi will get his minutes when they'll face tougher competition, I guess, unless injuries strike the D and one of the remaining NA based D gets available.

I think this year the WHC field is quite level, I see only CAN and FIN ahead of the rest on paper...
How you see it?
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Yes, it's clearly a lack of interest from NHL players. Is it already because the World Cup in september? Perhaps... Hell I'm not a fan about it. It ll kill the OG.

Sweden or Czech Republic for example have a weaker team than the last year on paper. Of course Canada ll always have a very decent team cause their depth is so huge. And hopefully for them, Finland have a young generation so impressive, what makes them a very nice team to see.

Let's hope the swiss team can take advantage of it. It could be a great year if all work for them.
 
For me it is logical that the swiss team has troubles with scoring. That happens when you call up players like trachsler, walker, schäppi, instead of players who know how to score. It is unfortunately almost every year the same. I get it that you ned also players that play physical and that you ned also a shoutdown players. But a Pestoni or a Sprunger would do miracles upfront. But they come from the wrong part of switzerland I guess. Also Rathgeb or Untersander would definitively be the better choice than Schneeberger and Grossmann! I hope the swiss will make the turnaround.

By the way, I know you guys will have a different opinion. You will say Sprunger is over and Pestoni is to small. But I don't share this opinion.
 
Sprunger retired.

You maybe know that there are two types of forwards, wings and centers. And you need centers. Trachsler is a center, that's why he's here. Same for Schäppi. They wouldn't be here if they were wings. Pestoni is a wing but he's not better than those who are here in the top-9.

Fischer has the best available team here. You can discuss if you'd take Scherwey over Wieser but this wouldn't make a difference.
 
When i see them playing in a tiers that is not in our favour in terms of scoring, i have the feeling they are playing piano or in a surgery room.

It's hockey guys !! you got to get into the face of the opposition and under their skin.

Besides ... unluck is tagging our games ... but you don't care about unluck when you score more.
the 3rd period against the Norvegians was ok. a bit less soft and smart and a bit more driving to the net and fight.
 
This team isn't physical enough, they're really soft actually. Martschini may score goals in the NLA but his 5 foot 3, 140lbs frame just won't do it at the international level. Those players aren't winning battles in the boards, they can't keep the puck and the d-men are always outplayed, + only two of them are above 5-11 :shakehead It looks like the ZSC Lions that think they're superstars but they just won't play a physical game because they don't want to get hurt. We need a real coach who can teach them that, Bykov would have been the perfect fit for this team or maybe Huras but oh wait... they don't speak "German". Damn SIHF! It's time to get rid of all those guys at the helm of Swiss hockey and start it from scratch!
 
Sens fan here. This is off topic, but if there are any fans of SC Bern here who could shed any light on Guy Boucher as coach there it would be appreciated.
 
So we'll see some new lines tomorrow. Haas is out and is replaced by Schäppi who centers a line with Andrighetto and Marc Wieser. Hofmann is also a center now between Moser and Nino. And the first line is now Hollenstein - Walser - Ambühl. Martschini is back on his place as 13th attacker.

I can see what's behind all this. Ambühl is better on the wing, Haas couldn't bring what he promised. On the other side Walser was one of the bright spots in the first two games. Moser - Hofmann - Nino worked good in the third period vs. Norway. But it's clear, the team needs 6 points out of this two games and both teams have a good team this year.

On D Grossmann is now 7th defender while Schneeberger plays on the side of Weber.
 
jonas2244 said:
So we'll see some new lines tomorrow. Haas is out and is replaced by Schäppi who centers a line with Andrighetto and Marc Wieser. Hofmann is also a center now between Moser and Nino. And the first line is now Hollenstein - Walser - Ambühl. Martschini is back on his place as 13th attacker.

I can see what's behind all this. Ambühl is better on the wing, Haas couldn't bring what he promised. On the other side Walser was one of the bright spots in the first two games. Moser - Hofmann - Nino worked good in the third period vs. Norway. But it's clear, the team needs 6 points out of this two games and both teams have a good team this year.

On D Grossmann is now 7th defender while Schneeberger plays on the side of Weber.
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Grossmann out we might all agree, can't time a pass to save his life. Schneeberger might cough up a puck in a bad situation once in a while, but at least he is a superior puckhandler. Im fine with that move.

Not so sure about Schäppi as a Center in an offensive line. Haas had that terrible giveaway which put him on the bench last game, beside that he wasn't worse than others IMO. I hope we gonna see him again soon, but he needs a good puckhandler to play with on his Wing.

Meyer playing better break-out passes than half the D is quite weird to watch.
 
and again the big problem is that we are not playing like a team but basing all our hopes in individual effort and the only tactical scheme of Fischer is "skate skate skate" aimlessly around. And the one that are not skating or are so tired that give up a puck go benched.
And players start playing out of role (remember, Fischer played Klasen and Fazzini, freaking Fazzini, as centers while benching them in the same game while they did some mistakes).
This is all typical of Fischer's hockey that was plain to see last october in Lugano. Lugano didn't play bad all the time, but it was a lot of skating around with no real plan how to get out of our defensive third without having forwards going back to retrieve the puck.
But this time he can't blame the selection of players he has (like he did in Lugano after being fired. On the ironic side, the same human material that Fischer claimed was a bad roster with many missing ppieces went to the finals). He decided for these players.
The presence of Walker at this level is inexcusable, he has 0 offensive. And the D is too small and look at that he wanted mobile and good passer but since everyone doesn't know where to be they can't be effective.

We have to be realist and understand that our big strengths are either Josi playing 30 minutes or a team that can train and grow up together the whole year (like Latvia with Dynamo Riga).

It is my opinion that a swiss national team that plays together always at every tournament the whole year and with only the addiction of only the true superstars (Josi and Nino at this moment, maybe and only maybe Andrighetto) is far better than a "best-of-all" selection with players that never played together.
 
Lugano fans have short memories when they bash Fischer. He had two strong seasons before losing control during his third, but he managed to completly rebuild the team and create a title contender in the process. Playing Klasen and Fazzini at center while some players were not available is nothing out of the ordinary, these things happen during a club season, this is not the NHL where teams have almost two rosters under contract. You can reduce his hockey to "skate skate skate" as much as you can reduce Shedden's to "throw the puck at the net and hope for the best".

This is the best possible team he could pick, the only players you could argue should have made it are Bodenmann and Bieber, not exactly guys who would be game changers. Walker is the perfect fourth line winger and belongs here, there will be players like him as long as we don't have three Niederreiter-Brunner winger pairs and can afford to put Moser and Ambühl on the fourth line.

Picking the same team for all international tournament like in Krueger's time is completly unrealistic, things have changed, the season is longer and the player depth is better. And beside, Krueger was constantly bashed for liking his Della Rossas and Paterlinis over guys like Burkalther or Nüssli who happend to have a hot streak in the NLA. Whatever you do, there will be complains.

There are many people to blame before even talking about the coaching staff.
 
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The dream of having a team that plays together all year is sadly unrealistic because the teams don't want to have their players too much in the national team.
 
stv11 said:
Lugano fans have short memories when they bash Fischer. He had two strong seasons before losing control during his third, but he managed to completly rebuild the team and create a title contender in the process. Playing Klasen and Fazzini at center while some players were not available is nothing out of the ordinary, these things happen during a club season, this is not the NHL where teams have almost two rosters under contract. You can reduce his hockey to "skate skate skate" as much as you can reduce Shedden's to "throw the puck at the net and hope for the best".

This is the best possible team he could pick, the only players you could argue should have made it are Bodenmann and Bieber, not exactly guys who would be game changers. Walker is the perfect fourth line winger and belongs here, there will be players like him as long as we don't have three Niederreiter-Brunner winger pairs and can afford to put Moser and Ambühl on the fourth line.

Picking the same team for all international tournament like in Krueger's time is completly unrealistic, things have changed, the season is longer and the player depth is better. And beside, Krueger was constantly bashed for liking his Della Rossas and Paterlinis over guys like Burkalther or Nüssli who happend to have a hot streak in the NLA. Whatever you do, there will be complains.

There are many people to blame before even talking about the coaching staff.
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I don't know how many Fans you have spoken too (and I man the true fans that hand-collected Faceoff statistics during the season or hand-calculated PDO of the team) or if you ever spoke to someone in the Resega but many of them saw that Fischer was having success only because of Pettersson and Klasen egregious season (c'mon....Petty 14/15 season was ridicoulous and rarely seen outside a lock-out). Actually many people in the resega, even after being third in the RS, were concerned for the playoff because of the strong dependance on two "smallish" players....and bam the results were there to see with two humiliation vs geneve two years in a row with Fischer badly outcoached by McSorley. There were voice of dissent well before last fall, and it's clear you never actually read a tessiner forum or actually talked to die-hard fans.
The causal fans, they loved Fischer. His charisma was overwhleming :sarcasm:
Though everyone recognize that Fischer tried to instill a winning mentality and brought enthusiasm back. This is not in dispute. Neither is the fact that thanks to him many top player signed in Lugano (Brunner, Furrer to quote two names). Let's just say I think he could be a great DS/GM.

Many many of us saw Pettersson and Klasen carrying him. He played them even more than Shedden, and that's all you need to know.

On top of that he played Klasen center when he had others center playing wing (like Morini or Hofmann or even Walker). He likes to experiment and punish players. Just look at how Bertaggia or Brunner played for him and how they went on to play for Shedden. C'mon Bertaggia did 0 goals in 16 games, went on to made 14 in 29 under shedden.


And I don't think it's unrealistic to have a national team always playing together, it simply would be "unacceptable" by the media and the fans. But there would be zero problems in having a team of NLA-only players. It just wouldn't be popular or glamourous.
 
I regularly read hclforum.net, forums are a good source for news, although most fans don't know much about hockey. I know how fans feel about Fischer, that was the whole point of my message, I just don't give much value to the average fan's opinion, die-hard or not.

Fischer has his weaknesses, his handling of Klasen and Brunner weren't exactly brillant coaching, but considering his whole time in Lugano a failure comes straight from the "what have you done for me lately" mentality. Doug Shedden led Zug to the playouts and Sean Simpsons' ZSC went out in the first round two years in a row.

You can't reduce all of Switzerland's struggle to the guy behind the bench.
 
stv11 said:
I regularly read hclforum.net, forums are a good source for news, although most fans don't know much about hockey. I know how fans feel about Fischer, that was the whole point of my message, I just don't give much value to the average fan's opinion, die-hard or not.

Fischer has his weaknesses, his handling of Klasen and Brunner weren't exactly brillant coaching, but considering his whole time in Lugano a failure comes straight from the "what have you done for me lately" mentality. Doug Shedden led Zug to the playouts and Sean Simpsons' ZSC went out in the first round two years in a row.
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Not so sure. Already 6 months in in his tenure in January 2014 Fischer made the first huge mistake with the punishment of Metropolit that led to "exchange" with the huge flop Lethonen. Metropolit wasn't exceptional but he was giving maximum effort, but for Fischer he was not "fighting enough along the board". He has this idea that every player is a complete player and can't accept that some players (like Metropolit, Brunner) are not that complete and do not always bring the full package or are willing to be board grinder.
As I said, there is much more that the "what have you done for me lately" mentality. Many fans didn't like his management of Metropolit. For me personally this was the point I started to doubt him.

stv11 said:
You can't reduce all of Switzerland's struggle to the guy behind the bench.
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on this, we agree 100%. The whole world championship was prepared really bad from the Fust sting that left the U20 unprepared to the Schläpfer Fiasco it's very difficult to blame only Fischer, that is giving 110%, that is sure. The problem I have is that everyone thinks that just because he is such a charismatic guys this translates in good hockey. I can't even comprehend why he was chosen, so as with RVA, after what he did in 2002.
 
If you want to talk about the bright spots, Trachsler is doing really well, I mean, he's no offensive Center but he needs to play this role now and he's doing everything he's able to, probably the only player who is near his limits.

Berra also had a good game, couldn't do much on both goals, had some great saves also. I gues we'll see him again tomorrow.
 
pepty said:
Sens fan here. This is off topic, but if there are any fans of SC Bern here who could shed any light on Guy Boucher as coach there it would be appreciated.
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Quick answer cause it's not the topic as you said.

We cannot say it was a very good period for Bern. Bern played a bit the same manner than Tampa under him: 1-3-1 . Some fans complained about some boring games and they wanted emotion in Bern. We can say it was a lack of it. All aspects of the game are thought very carefully. Some players said it was the coach who prepare a game as the better manner possible. Nothing is left at random. I'm convinced it's a good coach. I hope it'll be ok for him at Ottawa.

Main topic.

Yes we can find positive stuffs about Switzerland. We can see some tactics are not very well entered in the head of severals players. But anyway, the resiliance of this team seems very good. They play the end of the games with a good manner and never let it go. But the problem is they have to go out of this bad situation. Very tricky indeed in all last 4 games (included the game againt Germany when they were trailed 0-3 and won 4-3).

Some guys like Nino (definitely a NHL player, we better can see his impact this year) or Moser relieve us from this bad tournament start.

Some thoughts on Andrighetto? We can see he has the potentiel but Fische cannot find the role that makes him stand out. Perhaps I would put him between Moser and Niederreiter. Not a real center but why not...
 
I am very happy about the 3rt period vs Den. ... . They showed how they can play... when they play.

I believe that we still have chances for the QF. I know we will meet RUS, SWE, CZE and LAT but ...when they play well, they can beat some of these teams from time to time.

And in QF, we will not meet other type of teams than these ones (CAN, SVK, FIN, USA) . So we can start now. It is a good starter.

And we should not be relegated ... (i hope ;-) )
 
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