Inexperienced young Swiss lose first friendly game against Sweden

09 Apr 2014 | Andreas Reiner

With the playoffs still ongoing in Switzerland and Sweden, last years World Championship finalists play their first of two friendly games in Rapperswil and Arosa with players that were eliminated from their championship races.

Neither team was able to get a clear upper hand during the first minutes but it was Linus Klasen assisted by Brithen who opened the score with a nice wrist shot on Daniel Manzato in the Swiss goal when 8 minutes were played. In the following minutes the Swiss created some good chances but couldn't beat swedish netminder Linus Ullmark. The swedes on the other hand had a number of breakaways but couldn't add another goal. With a little more than a minute left Niclas Anderssen received a pass from Lukas Kilström and Jonas Ahnelöv and scored on the high, right corner to finish the 1st period with a 2:0 lead.

The Swedes started strong into the second period and with two minutes played it was Dick Axelsson assisted by Alexander Wennberg and Andreas Thuresson who scored the 3rd goal of the game. What seemed obvious, and this is nothing new, was that Switzerland was able to get into the offensive zone but didn't have the scoring instinct, again and again, the puck was not passed precisely or a pass too many was played. The opposite of what Switzerland was producing was Sweden. They came into the zone with a lot of drive and in many situations, ready to shoot the puck from a good position.

Period 3 started the same way as in the two first. With 45 minutes played Robin Grossmann was assessed with a 2 minute minor for Slashing but the Swiss avoided a 4th goal during the boxplay. Five minutes later Samuel Walser was benched for Hooking and this time the Swedes were successful on their powerplay, Hersley scored the 4th goal, assisted by Axelsson and Klasen. With 52 minutes played Switzerland got their chance on a powerplay as Tim Nilsso was benched for Boarding. The powerplay was almost over when Dominik Schlumpf scored, assisted by Samuel Walser Tristan Scherwey. Now the swiss seemed to have won some confidence, creating good chances but not being able to capitalise on those. With less than half a minute to go, Anton Rödin was benched for Tripping but this didn't change the result and so the Swiss loose 4:1.

It's difficult to say who will survive the cut on both Teams once the playoffs are over and those players join their respective Team. Especially Sweden will be trying to get as many players from the NHL teams that didn't make the playoffs. Switzerland will try and convice Roman Josi to join Switzerland after a long season.

Sidenote: Dean Kukan, Eric Walsky, Pascal Berger, Lino Martschini, Thomas Déruns and Caryl Neuenschwander played their first game ever/this Season for the Swiss National Team. Best Player Sweden: Linus Ullmark. Best Player Switzerland: Reto Suri

Head Referees: Karol Popovic, Nadir Mandioni
Linesmen: Roman Kaderli, Simon Wüst