Kloten beats Zug

Both teams were off to a rather slow start during the first minutes, maybe they wanted to finish the game early to watch the FIFA World Cup qualifier Switzerland-Albania which seemed to have kept a few people out of the Schluefweg Stadium tonight.

Then, 6:33 into the game, Kloten scored their first goal through Matthias Bieber (Assist Peter Mueller) but only 17 seconds later, Zug's Andrew Hutchinson scored his first of the game and less than a minute later it was Kloten's veteran Marcel Jenni who brought the Kloten ahead again.

With little more than a minute to play in the first period, Kloten got their first powerplay of the evening but weren't able to get on the scoreboard.

The second period: same scenario like in Period 1, only this time it was Zug's Fabian Schnyder assisted by Hutchinson to even the score 2:2 4:03 into the game. And only 4 minutes later Ex Flyer Sven Lindemann scored the leading goal assisted by Schnyder. It then was Klotens turn to score the equalizer by Romano Lemm who was also honored for his 400th game with the Flyers.

What started to be a rather quiet evening now turned into a scorer's festival, next: Rob Schremp, assisted by Schnyder shortly after halftime. Coach Felix Hollenstein had seen enough though and replaced Martin Gerber through Jonas Müller. A powerplay was then awarded to the Flyers who couldn't score but only seconds later Micki Dupont took his teams advantage and the 2nd period ended with 4-on-4.

With a one-man advantage, Zug scored their 5th goal of the evening only 1 minute into the last period. Rob Schremp was unassisted 11 minutes after the 3rd period started and 2 minutes later Peter Mueller scored Kloten’s 4th goal, the point for the assist was given to Patrick von Gunten.

Then halfway through the period, the Flyers had a man advantage and the chance to even the score.

But none of the shots were precise enough to beat Zug's Eero Kilpelainen and to make things more difficult, Kloten and shortly after Zug had a player each in the Coolbox. It was Michael Liniger who then scored on the one-man advantage and released pressure from the 4'904 spectators. With 4 and a half minutes left, Klotens Simon Bodenmann scored the leading goal in a game that saw 10 different scorers. And with 2:24 left, it was Michael Liniger (who also was honored for his 700th NLA game), who had already scored the 5th goal and finished with his 9th point of the season.

Tweets by @eurohockey