Kloten pick up 3 points against Tigers

The game wasn't even a minute old when Finnish forward Ville Koistinen passed the puck straight to Thomas Nüssli who didn't face an opponent and beat Martin Gerber a first time. This game was important for both teams. Kloten tried to stay in the top 8 while Langnau were trying to gain points towards the 8 best teams. This was a wake-up call for the home team. The Flyers now created chances and when Langnau's Chris DiDomenico was benched for holding Peter Guggisberg deflected a hard shot from Tommi Santala through his legs and between Punnenovs pipes with 7 minutes played. In the following minutes the Flyers created a few more chances but the period ended 1-1.

The second period started with 2 minor penalties against the home team, goalie Gerber for moving the goal out of it's crease and Romano Lemm for interference in the first 10 minutes. The Tigers created a a number of chances but couldn't capitalize on the one-man advantage. With less than 4 minutes left, Romano Lemm stood just right when he got the pass from behind the goal and the puck bounced off his stick into the goal in the 37th minute. And less than a minute later Matthias Bieber increased the score to 3-1 when he scored unassisted. In the second period the guests from the Emmental had chances to score but in the end had to accept two quick goals because the puck wasn't cleared consequently in front of the own goal.

The start of the third period was rather quiet, it didn't seem that the Tigers were capable of turning the game around, the Flyers for once were in control of the game. But out of nowhere, with 8 minutes left, Ville Koistinen scored on a nice solo and a shot from the far face-off circle. All of a sudden, the Tigers had the upper hand in this game. The pressure suddenly was on the Flyers side. Head coach Laporte removed Punnenovs for a 6th attacker but with a minute left it was Chad Kolarik who scored the empty netter.

This win was important for Kloten as Lausanne, the 9th placed team, lost in Davos. Langnau and Biel take the 11th and 12th spot but aren't out of the play-off contention yet.

"This surely was quite a boring game to watch tonight. We're happy that we picked up these 3 points. Last year, we would loose these kind of games many times", a tired Patrick von Gunten said.

When asked what made the difference this season he answered:"I think it's the system that Sean (Simpson, head coach) wants us to play and sure, it doesn't always work but we have the confidence now that we can also turn around a game."

How did you feel to play after concussion you suffered earlier this week? "Actually it wasn't a concussion (Edit: it was a bruise) otherwise I wouldn't have played. You never know what it could be, but I was symptom free, was able to train withouth problems, that's why I could play today. Should I have experienced any kind of pain or trouble I would have stopped playing straight away."

He continued to explain that it was less painfull when it happened in Lugano than here in Kloten due to the flexible boards that Lugano has installed. "I think the Clubs still haven't realised how big the difference is compared to these new boards, how the impact of a check is lowered by those boards."

This is definitely a topic that needs to be discussed, especially if you consider that the number of concussions has been on the rising.

 

Advanced player search

Tweets by @eurohockey