Biel is only one success away from its first National League play-off final. The Seelanders lead their series of semi-finals 3-0 against the Zurich Lions, beaten 5-3 in the 3rd match.
The players of coach Antti Törmänen, back to the band after his surgery on Friday, have once again broken the Zurich lock. For this third act, the Lions of Marc Crawford had chosen to place the debates on physical intimidation, especially at the start of the meeting. A trap from which the Seelanders escaped quite easily.
After a very balanced first period, the game took a funny turn with an explosion of goals – seven – in the second period. Bienne was able to take advantage of its first period of numerical superiority to open the scoring on a magnificent triangulation between Sallinen and Kessler and concluded by Luca Hischier (21st). Then Sallinen, again, launched deep with a chiseled pass Tony Rajala, who found a mouse hole between the pads of Hrubec (27th) for the 2-0.
Serious defensive deficiencies
The Zurich Lions, very disappointing despite all the shuffles made by Crawford with the sidelines of the Canadian Azevedo and the Swedish Wallmark, finally found the way to the net by Chris Baltisberger after 162 minutes of scarcity. The Zealand reaction was up to par with two goals in 44” by Jesper Olofsson and Ramon Tanner. Even the 4-2 scored by Lehtonen (38th) was erased by the insolent success of future retiree Etienne Froidevaux, which highlighted the serious defensive shortcomings of Zurich.
Since the introduction of the best-of-7 play-offs, only five times have a team managed to reverse a series when they were down 3-0. The task of the Lions is therefore practically doomed to failure.
The only problem for the Biel residents in this new gala evening: the injury of Gaëtan Haas. The captain was hit in the face by a puck on a shot by Marti and left the ice to go directly to the locker room at the start of the third period.
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