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Davos goalkeeper Sandro Aeschlimann will perform on Friday night at the covered station in Zurich. Image: keystone
Eismeister Zaugg
Davos with Joe Thornton: the best liability ever?
Davos Hockey Club has made a ‘cold start’. And it’s the best finish on the table since the introduction of the playoffs in 1986.
HC Davos kicks off last November in the National League. The loss to the fickle ZSC Lions titans (3-6) proves the NL has never had a better backlight in November. And it wouldn’t be a surprise if Joe Thornton, the “anti-DiDomenico,” soon produced two points per game.
In the spring, a victory was missing to win the classification. And now the HCD has reached the bottom of the basement of the table. With a nominally better team, the same president, the same sporting director and the same coach. With what feels like five foreign players: In Zurich, naturalized NHL icon Joe Thornton has already played his third game. The defeat at the Hallenstadion reveals very special problems.
Sports director Raeto Raffainer and coach Christian Wohlwend continue the art of the great magician Arno Del Curto as sorcerer’s apprentices. The art of speed. The HCD as a team of speed and energy that flees from adversaries and all difficulties. Raid-type attacks and terrifying speed.
But at the Hallenstadion, against a wayward titan, it’s over in a few minutes. After three partially embarrassing defeats, a backlash follows. The first attack brings the 1-0 at 21 seconds and at 6 minutes it is 2-0. It is the fifth game in two weeks for Zurich. For HCD, the fifth game in five weeks. The explanation lies in these simple numbers.
Christian Wohlwend makes no excuses when he mentions this special feature of the calendar. It’s hard to bring speed and intensity to the ice with just one game a week. It is what it is: every fall 2020 game at HCD is followed by a “cold start.”
Against the ZSC Lions, the weak start costs a possible win, the “cold start” is statistically documented: 5:18 shots on goal in the first third. When the Davos found their rhythm, they put Zurich in dire straits even after a 4-0 deficit and dominated their opponent in the final stretch (17: 8 shots on target). With the fun buttons on the pants, it is not possible to hit an opponent who is always formidably busy from the first to the fourth line. But it is no longer enough to win.
The ZSC Lions have enough class to get ahead. He’s a fickle titan – if everyone focuses on what they’re doing, talent meets strength, discipline, and focus – a master team. Excess of talent and self-confidence seduces the funny meanders, almost a point provider. That is the great challenge for coach Rikard Grönborg: to expel the “demons” of carelessness, recklessness and negligence, which are so often part of the DNA of such talented teams. It could be a roller coaster during the season.
Davos head coach Christian Wohlwend. Photo: trapezoidal
Christian Wohlwend has no such concerns. He’s on guard and evokes the passion of last season, when the proudly wounded Davosers did their best to put an embarrassing episode in their history (the 2019 playouts as “Lakers of the Mountains”) forgotten. But the passion is still there. The HCD celebrated their hockey tempo once the game started.
Too late, but still. And the faster the game, the better Joe Thornton gets. The 41-year-old naturalized Canadian is a low-key player at first glance. Has it made a difference at the Hallenstadion? And then a look at the stats: Oops, two assists! And already four goalscorer points in the three previous missions!
Joe Thornton in a previous game. Image: keystone
Joe Thornton is not a great success. No one to ignite the furnaces of emotion with spectacular solo actions, solo advances, record hunts, rumbling controls, indiscipline and provocation. He is a friendly philosopher of the game with calm qualities that are only revealed on closer inspection: phenomenal game intelligence, perfectly timed passes, played accurately on the sticks, economical game with short walking distances, but intelligent positional play. In a way, it’s kind of like the flamboyant Chris DiDomenico’s hockey counter thesis.
Once the HCD speed game is going well, when your fellow players fly and sweep across the ice, your game intelligence will act as an offensive fire accelerator. It would not be a surprise if he soon produced an average of two points per game. Now it is 1.33. And he will continue to work as an engineer in the HCD offensive engine room for a while – he has a new contract with Toronto. But no one knows when the NHL will start the season.
Five games, one win at home (against the Lakers), four losses away (in Geneva, Lausanne, Lugano and Zurich), last place in November: statistically controversial. In fact, all the more reason to point out a curiosity: the best bottom of the table since the introduction of the playoffs (1986). It is not even completely ruled out that a team that started last in November, meanwhile, will rise to the top of the table, as long as goalkeeper performance and the balance between offense and defense improve.
