Luca Hollenstein has not forgotten the last direct encounter on January 4, 2024 in the BOSSARD Arena: One second before the end of regulation time, the backup to the injured Leonardo Genoni scored an own goal to give the record champions a 5:4 victory and HCD head coach Josh Holden’s first taste of success against his teacher Dan Tangnes. But Luca Hollenstein, who (like Nico Gross) has signed for the next two years with Davos of all places, put his frustration away convincingly and laid the foundation for the away victories in Lugano (4:1) and Geneva (3:0) with two brilliant performances in the following games.
EVZ PLAYS AT DAVOS TODAY TUESDAY
EXCITING HEAD-TO-HEAD FIGHT
EVZ won the first season duel in Grisons 5-1 on October 15, 2023 with Leonardo Genoni and Sandro Aeschlimann in goal. It’s unlikely to be as easy as it was back then – the visitors led 4-0 after just 24 minutes – on Tuesday evening. In the last few games, the team that needed the points more urgently usually won. Like Biel and Rapperswil before the national team break against EVZ. Or like HC Davos, who are not sure of qualifying directly for the playoffs in 7th place – despite their victories in the last two rounds at home against the Lakers (4-0) and in Lugano (1-0). They are currently six points behind Lugano, who have played three games more.
WHO IS READY TO PLAY?
Who will be ready to go in Davos? is also the question for the EVZ, who have lacked consistency of late and have lost five of their last ten games. Brian O’Neill, Tobias Geisser, who celebrates his 25th birthday on February 13, and Riley Sheen will be out for a longer period of time. Grégory Hofmann and Attilio Biasca left the ice early at the Beijer Hockey Games with injuries and are at least questionable. In general, the three further defeats against the big boys were probably anything but a welcome change for the players involved – neither for Livio Stadler, Attilio Biasca, Grégory Hofmann and Sven Senteler (scorer against Sweden after all) from EVZ, nor for Sven Jung and Michael Fora from HCD. On the other hand, HCD forwards Enzo Corvi and Valentin Nussbaumer, the second-best point scorer (28) behind HCD top scorer Matej Stransky (33), who were unable to make the national team squad due to injury, might be ready to play against EVZ again.
You can find all information on the current personnel situation in the Medical Report.
EVZ TOPSCORER
After scoring his 20th goal of the season against Biel, Lino Martschini continues to wear the gold helmet as Zug’s top scorer. As with the first win of the season in Davos, the team performance will be decisive for the success of the still second-best away team (23 games/46 points).
