Germans upset Swiss, on to semi-finals

For the second time in three years, Germany has beaten Switzerland in a quarterfinal in Riga and will play in the semifinals of the IIHF World Championship. Jonas Muller recorded two assists and Mathias Niederberger stopped 29 of 30 shots for the 3-1 victory.

“It’s a pretty awesome feeling right now,” said German striker Justin Schutz. “We just said we have to play our game. We lost the first three games in the group stage, almost all of them, then we won four in a row. We have a lot of confidence. Our game is just good pre-controls, hard on the man, pucks deep, good in the D-zone, that’s what we did today.”

It’s a bitter end to the tournament for what many consider to be the greatest Swiss hockey team ever assembled. After winning their first six games in regulation – conceding just six goals along the way – they finished the group stage with an extra-time loss to Latvia before going out in the quarter-finals.

“I don’t know what happened,” said despondent Swiss defender Dean Kukan. “We had our chances, but we couldn’t score. Our power game didn’t get going. They beat us. We had a great start in the first period, and then it was 1-1 and we had a five minute power play and didn’t score.

Two years ago, the Germans also entered the game as fourth seed against group winner Switzerland. That game was decided in a shootout, but Germany managed to win this game legally, thanks to two goals 36 seconds apart late in the second period.

Germany started strongly and scored the only goal of the first period at 6:25, when Maximilian Kastner’s long shot from the rush squeezed through Robert Mayer’s pads and trickled over the goal line.

The Swiss eventually began to push back later in the opening period. They then tied the score in the first minute of the second period while under hard pressure in the German zone. Jonas Siegenthaler fielded a pass from Kevin Fiala and then fired from the top of the circle through a crowd beating Mathias Niederberger to the glove side.

Switzerland then got into some penalty trouble with a pair of high-stick fouls – first a double minor for Andres Ambuhl and then a minor for Enzo Corvi – but the Germans failed to take much offense. When the latter power play was cut short when star defender Moritz Seider received a heavy penalty and a misspelling for boarding, it could have spelled disaster for Germany.

However, the Germans killed the major and then scored a couple of goals late in the middle frame. First, John Peterka scored the go-ahead goal, taking a pass into Dominik Kahun’s high slot and beating a screened Mayer.

“Just an unreal play by Dominik who found me there,” described Peterka. “We saw it in pre-scout that the center can be open against those guys, and then we dragged the puck a little bit and shot it into the net.”

With the Swiss back in the power play, the Germans scored a back-breaking shorthanded goal with 1:33 to play in the period. After winning a face-off in their own zone, the puck was shot around the boards and out, making a German 2-on-1. Wojciech Stachowiak set Nico Sturm nicely for a one-timer that Mayer had little chance of.

“My goal gave us some power, but Nico’s goal changed everything,” said Peterka.

“We know how the Germans play. It’s not our first game against them,” said Kukan. “We knew what to expect and handled it well, but we couldn’t score and conceded some stupid goals. We did our best today, but couldn’t capitalize on our chances.”

In a hopeless situation, the Swiss increased the pressure in the third period. Midway through the period, they had a great chance to close the gap when Corvi found Janis Moser with a pass into the background, but Moser couldn’t pull the trigger and then fell down without getting a shot off. Then Germany almost put the game away when Moritz Muller’s punt shot hit the post and Stachowiak, coming in behind Mayer, couldn’t tap the bouncing puck in.

The Swiss called a timeout and pulled Mayer back with 2:44 left, leading 6-to-4 for the final 49.7 seconds, but to no avail.

“The people in Germany were like, let’s just get to the quarter-finals, but we knew maybe we could do better,” Schutz said. “I think two weeks ago I would have said yes to the quarter-finals, but today we knew we could go to the semi-finals, and we are. Now we want to win everything!”