Jerry Turkulainen, Kevin Fey, Thomas Thiry, Arno Nussbaumer, Valentin Pilet, Christophe Cavalleri and Lilian Garessus vs. Dominik Schlumpf, Elia Riva, Lukas Bengtsson, Raphael Diaz and Daniel Vozenilek.
No, this is not the line-up for the October 4 clash – it’s the current injury list of HC Ajoie and EVZ. Both teams are forced to cope with a number of significant absences.

While Fey, Thiry, Cavalleri, Garessus and the much-missed scorer Turkulainen – whose return had originally been expected in September – have yet to play a single game this season, Pilet and Nussbaumer only recently joined Ajoie’s defensive casualties. Even with this depleted roster, the Jurassians managed to push Lausanne HC – who visited Zug on Friday – to the very limit last Tuesday. In the end, Ajoie narrowly missed out on securing their second home point (after an impressive 4:0 win over SC Bern on September 20), falling just short in a 1:2 defeat.

EVZ responded to their previous defeat with a 4:2 home win over Lausanne, extending a curious streak: in the last five head-to-head meetings between Zug and Lausanne, the home side has always come out on top – and that pattern continued on Friday night. For Lausanne it was the third defeat of the season; they remain league leaders, but on points per game HC Davos has now moved ahead. After eleven games, Zug sits in sixth place with 20 points, level with the ZSC Lions.

The situation looks very different for Ajoie: on Friday evening, the Jurassians suffered a narrow 0:1 away loss to the SCL Tigers. Despite a strong goaltending performance from Conz, their offense once again failed to deliver. With only five points from eleven games, Ajoie remains at the bottom of the standings.