Friday evening’s top performance was followed by a sharp drop in performance on Tuesday – in the end, EVZ left the ice in Langnau as losers with a score of 2:4. Tuesday evening was a completely different story for the Grenats: they swept the league leaders out of the stadium with a score of 7:0. It was the first defeat for HCD after 60 minutes. Actually, such results have been more common for the other side so far this season: 0-11 against Lausanne, 1-5 against Lugano, 0-8 against Biel, 2-6 against Fribourg. Only Ajoie has conceded as many goals as the Eagles. But in the last two games, the goal difference is 13-0 for interim coach Ville Peltonen’s team. Geneva already celebrated its victory against EHC Biel-Bienne on Saturday at its home stadium. And now, on Thursday, the third home game in a row is coming up – a bad omen for EVZ?

The two teams are right behind each other in the table, with the Romands two points ahead. Genève-Servette won the first match of the season away at the OYM hall with a score of 4-1. The only goal scorer for EVZ around three weeks ago was captain Jan Kovar, assisted by David Sklenicka and Tomas Tatar in a power play. Overall, the Czech and Slovak imports are responsible for 69 of Zug’s 156 points (goals and assists). Will they be able to stand up to the Finnish high-flyers around Jesse Puljujärvi, Markus Granlund, and Sakari Manninen in Geneva on Thursday – all of whom are among the top six in the league-wide scoring list with more than one point per game (Zug’s best is Dominik Kubalik in 8th place with 1.05 points per game)?

For EVZ, this is the last game before the national team break. Zug will be back on November 12 with a home game in the CHL round of 16 against Sparta Prague. Tickets for the game are available at the EVZ ticketshop.