I don't think I did. For one you are ignoring a very important aspect of this issue: players can also underperform not just overperform. So if Nino plays better at the WC than Kempe its not him overperforming but rather Kempe underperforming. And its not like the Swiss rosters of the past few years are full of overperformers all the time either. This year a lot of the depth players were disappointing. Most of them have already proven that they can be better at this tournament. And guys like Meier and Hischier had disappointing tournaments in the past too. But what is it that Fischer does to get "the best" out of his players? All I am hearing are vague arguments about intangibles. Does he inspire the players with speeches like Al Pachino in "Any given Sunday"? There are just so many factors that are much more important for a WC performance than anything the coach can influence. Is the player healty? Is he tired after a long season? Did he play well during the season and can he carry it over to the tournament or not? Does jetlag/travel impact him? How does his private life impact him? Is he actually diled in or thinking about his next career move? There are just so many things factoring into a players performance at a short tournament as the WC for anybody to give most of the credit to the coach if it pans out for once. On the other hand the coach shouldnt take most of the blame if it doesnt either.
That may be true but which actual superstars are even coming to the WC regularly in the recent past? Canada never brings any of them anymore. Bedard was a bit of an exception as he is sort of a budding superstar who isnt quite there yet in terms of his play. But like it was in Crosbys case, I don't see him attending this tournament very many times in his career. Russia usually brought some of their best players but they are out of the tournament indefinitely. The US hasnt brought any superstar since Kane. Then you have Draisaitl who played a couple of times in the tournament but for a weaker teams. Finland had Rantanen reporting once in the last five years but thats it. Sweden had Nylander Dahlin and Petterson report a couple of times in the same timeframe, but its very debatable if they actually were NHL superstars at the time when they reported. Hedman only played one tournament in that stretch. And Pastrnak suited up for one and a half tournaments in the same timeframe. So its just a fact that very few of the NHLs very best players are part of the WC at this point. So Josi but also Hischier, Meier and Fiala were usually among the best players in the tournament when they reportet. At least on paper.
Hockey games are not won on paper. You cant make a case for any team that it needs to win in any year based on roster strength. What you can do is argue that a tournament is winnable with a certain roster. You are factoring out a lot of context in your list down below as well. For instance certain advantages european countries have. Like playing on the bigger ice surface and having better roster cohesion over the years. Or the fact that not all the countries care about winning the WC the same amount. Canada cares much less about the tournament than the euro teams for instance. Sweden was definitely saturated for a while in the early 2020's from their earlier wins. And the US dont care about winning the tournament whatsoever. For those guys its mainly a chance to get a vacation while playing some hockey. This also explains this take from you:
This tournament was in fact unwinnable for Switzerland. Sure would have been nice to reach the quarters instead of Denmark, but thats beside the point.
This tournament was unwinnable too.
This tournament was winnable. If Fiala hadn't faned on his famous chance we would have won it. That doesn't mean that losing was a shame but victory was definitely in our grasp here.
This tournament was winnable too. We were up a goal vs Canada in the quarters and dominating them until the coaching staff gave out the directive to hold onto the lead and park the bus infront of our goal. Of course Canada scored the equalizer seconds before time was up. And therefore they won in OT after we lost practically all our momentum. Our roster was also stronger on paper than Finlands. We had Josi, Hischier, Fiala, Nino and also Andrighetto as our NHL players. And Hofmann coming of the best year of his career scoring 30 goals in the NLA. Could have had Malgin too, if Fischer hadn't decided to ban him that year due to him missing the stupid prospects camp. The Finns did also not have 7 but only two (fulltime) NHL players. Kakko was still an Euro as it was his draft year. Lankinen played zero games for Chicago that year. And Johkihariu was and is a third pairing guy in the NHL, nothing more. Now that doesnt mean an automatic win for us in a possible matchup. But we certainly would not have been the underdog in that case.
Another winnable tournament in my book. We only had Meier, Hischier, Kurashev and Siegenthaler as NHL reinforcements. But they had good support from the NLA group. Scherwey, Berschy, Hofmann and JJ.Moser all had very good tournaments. Andrighetto was on the team too but underperformed unfortunately just like Meier and Hischier. That just goes to show you that Fischer doesnt get always the best out of his players. Canada probably had their weakest roster ever that year. At lot of third pairing guys and third and fourth liners in the NHL. Guys like Hagel, Power and Mangiapane weren't as good back then as they are now. They sort of rose to the occasion and won the tournament despite it. They were probably better on paper than our team, especially regarding depth but certainly not unbeatable. Germany and Latvia beat them in their group stage games.
You are also exagerating Finlands NHL reinforcements once again. Lundell and Puustinen still played in Finland back then. Säteri in the KHL. Which leaves Ruotsalainen and Mätää. The former played like 17 games in the big League. And Maata, while never known as offensive dman was coming of his worst offensive season in the NHL with only four points. So I dont think its far fetched to say that the Fins were primarely an Euro-Team that year.
Now if we had beaten Germany, a mostly DEL based team with Rieder and Kahun as their most notable players we could have played Finland in the semis and Canada in the finals. So this year would have been a golden oportunity to get the gold. It wouldt have been easy but Switzerland winning this tournament wouldn't have been an upset in the least.
Also a winnable tournament in my book. We had Meier, Hischier, Siegenthaler, Moser and Suter as NHL reinforcements. Also Malgin had his best WC performance that year at any WC and was one of the tournaments top scorers. We actually beat Canada 6-3 in the group stage. Its also up for debate if Finland really had a better roster than we had in 2022. Lethonen has like 10 NHL games under his belt, none of them he played in 21-22. Säteri played like 6 games for Montreal that season and didnt exactly excell in any of them. Its a bit of a stretch to call him an NHL player. The most notable players were basically Heikanen, Granlund and to a lesser degree Lindell. Certainly a good team. Maybe even better on paper than us that year. But there is no way that they were in a completely different tier like you are insinuating.
Another winnable tournament in my book. We had Fiala, Niederreiter, Hischier, Siegenthaler and Moser as NHL reinforcements. Some of them arrived late but they were all there come quarter finals. Everyone had us pegged as favourites against the Germans in that game. Of course we lost. Fischer cetainly didnt improve our chances by not playing Niederreiter, Hischier, Malgin and Kukan in the game before the quarters against Latvia. This completely destroyed the rythm of the team in the quarters. Maybe its was justified in Hischiers case who suffered from jetlag but not for the other guys.
Canada on the other hands didn't have a player as good as Hischier or Fiala on the roster that year but better depth. Still they were far from being unbeatable in that tournament. In fact we did beat them again in the group stage.
Again a winnable tournament for us. The game was close enough for an extended period of time to argue that we could have won that game under certain circumstances (unlike the finals in 2013 for example). I would say though the Czechs had the better roster after all their late reinforcements had arrived.
So all in all we had six tournaments that were winnable in Fischers tenure and two that were a lost cause from the get go. What we got out of it are two second places. Is that enough? Thats hard to say. The thing is we have the best generation of hockey players Switzerland has ever seen right now. We might not get the chance to seriously contend for WC gold over multiple years for decades, maybe for our lifetimes once this generation is done.
So with that outlook, its just not enough. We had a set of very rare chances to contend and we still gave away to many of them to easily. Now I dont blame Fischer exclusively for this as you accuse me to. In fact I think the players are just as much if not more "responsible" than him. A few of them have been complete disappearing acts in the most important games. But Fischer has contributed to give away some of those chances with his bad tactics. And he has contributed to losses in knockout games at the Olympics too. I think if we had had a more competent coach at the bench during the last few years, the chances to get gold would have been higher. Winning the WC would not have been a guarantee, far from that. But I don't believe we would have gifted away so many quarterfinals in that case.
On top of that Fischer is alienating players that are not to his liking. Banning Bichsel from the NT so long was undeserving. Who knows if he ever suits up for the NT again if he is not allowed to go to the next Olympics and the home WC. And its not like decent prospects are growing on trees right now.
