Switzerland takes the first loss of the tournament, losing to Sweden 2-5 and matching their shots at 27. Sweden came in the first two periods and rocked Switzerland but kept out of the Swiss’s crease for the third period. Switzerland looked defeated after the first period and came into the second period to only score one goal. The Swiss need to dig past this harsh loss and work on looking to defeat Slovakia, which could be a game for them to earn some points in order to stay in this round robin and push through to the medal rounds.
Switzerland looked lost for the first two periods and barely seemed to get back on their feet for the third period. They used both Luca Hollenstein and Stephane Charlin, and Hollenstein stopped 13 out of 17 shots, posting a 0.760 save percentage, and Charlin stopped 9 out of 10 shots, posting a 0.900 save percentage. For a two goalie game, it seemed that they two worked pretty well in tandem, however, with the amount of goals scored by Sweden versus the two goals posted by Switzerland, the game was very lack luster on the Swiss’s side. I mean Switzerland finally scored after Sweden finished scoring for the rest of the game, going into the third period down by 4. Even though they shut out Sweden in the third period, the offensive side of the puck for the Swiss looked lost and looked defeated before they could get going. Switzerland is going to have to put this game into their minds and work on the all around play if they want to survive the round robin and make it to the medal placement games. For the Swiss to be able to reach the podium, they are going have to take on and defeat both Slovakia, who just lost their last game by seven goals, and Finland, the reigning champions are second in the Group A standings. The Swiss are going to need both sides of the puck to be running at full steam in both games for the rest of the round robin if they are going to make it and have a successful run in the medal placement rounds.
Going into a day a off-day before going to back to back days with a game, the Swiss team will need to regroup and will need to work on both sides of the puck and work with both goalies they are going to be able to take on Slovakia and Finland, and come out of these games with some useful points in order to make it out of the round robin preliminary tournament. Switzerland takes on Slovakia on December 30th at 1 pm ET/12 pm CT and takes on Finland on December 31st at 1 pm ET/12 pm CT. I am looking forward to see how the Swiss bounce back and work on both sides of the puck, especially with the forwards and looking to take more chances on goal in order to corral both Finland and Slovakia.
