Klasen leads Lugano to victory in Zug

The first night of the National League A playoffs was an exciting one for Lugano: the Ticino side, who ended the regular season at the fifth place, started its path to the final phase of the championship against Zug, fourth in the table. After two straight early eliminations (both against Geneva) in the quarterfinals and a difficult start which led to the change of trainer, the club from the Italian-speaking region of Switzerland was highly motivated to forget all the problems and the losses suffered in the recent past.

Thanks to the intelligent planning of coach Doug Shedden, who substituted Patrick Fischer on the bench some months ago, the roster was fresh and every main player (except Gregory Hoffmann, temporarily banned for two weeks) was ready to get on the ice at the Bossard Arena. The 6-4 loss in the final game of the regular season against local archrivals Ambrì-Piotta was really not a big deal: the fifth place was already secured, as well as the pairing with Zug.

After a not very exciting first quarter, where the Ticinesi displayed a good defense and had a couple of brilliant occasions to take an early lead, which eventually came in the middle of the following period: a wonderful score by Alessio Bertaggia and some incredible saves by goalie Elvis Merzlikins put HCL in front, albeit only temporarily. The equalizer came at the 42nd minute, when Holden scored an exciting goal for the Bulls. The third period was, again, just a confrontation between both defensive lines, who resisted pretty well into the overtime, thus going to the final, decisive penalty shootout.

A 2-0 lead by Lugano, signed by Swedes Pettersson and Klasen, was rapidly recovered by the opponents, who scored twice as well with Bouchard and Holden. Still, after another masterful score again by Klasen, the home side failed to reach the 3-3, thus giving a deserved victory to the Bianconeri, who by now have a wonderful occasion to enlarge their lead in the series by hosting the next game, to be held this Saturday at the Resega.

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