Lugano’s 2020-21 season met an abrupt end, having won last year’s sweepstake for the second place before an unexpected exit against Rapperswil-Jona. If the team looked like they would be fighting for a spot in the top-6, everything just went their way in the final stretch of the season. From their own results, to opponents not playing all their games, Lugano clinched the second spot awarding the right to play a lower seeded team.
Then, things got ugly. After a first game dominated by the Bianconeri, Rapperswil just took over the series and swept the remaining games.
From the hopes of fighting for a spot in the Final to the upset, Lugano had no other choices but to turn toward the next season, knowing things would change on and off the ice.
No matter how successful the team was since his arrival, Serge Pelletier was not extended behind the bench and Chris McSorley was offered the job with the clear ambition of leading the club towards a title in the next few years.
Chris McSorley is a legendary figure in the league, having coached over two decades. Will his arrival impact the brand of hockey played by Lugano? Probably. Will he use the recipes from his days in Geneva or add some new strategies? Apparently a bit of both.
In an interview given on August 29th to heshootshescores.com, McSorley expressed his desire to “play a game full of opportunities on both fronts. Our trust in Schlegel and in our best players is what (can make) the difference.” That sounds promising, even if the engagement, hard forecheck and pressure on the opponents are also on the menu. But another quote was interesting: “the best defence is to have the puck”, which also could hint into a more modern brand of hockey.
We talked to video coach Flavio Nodari and he confirmed that mix of fast but hard hockey: “We want to be a difficult team to play against, tough, fast and who never gives up. We want to play straight to the net, with speed. Aggressive in our defensive zone and in retrieving the puck, use fast transitions and a strong forecheck.
As a staff, we are working to get the players to understand this philosophy. Everyone comes from a different system and for some guys, it's a big change. The first results are starting to show.”
Roster for the 2021-22 Season
Remember: Explanation on our Win Shares and projection models is here
Player and goalie ID cards legend is here
Lugano last appearance in the Final was in 2018, a long time ago for the club.
“We want to be one of the contenders for the championship, to go as far as we can in the season and playoffs and still qualify for the CHL.” said Flavio Nodari without any hesitation.
“Our GM has done a great job putting this team together. We have young players who are growing well. The new arrivals are all already very well integrated and we have a very good import package. There are many leaders, even among the newcomers, but also players who will have to show something and from whom we expect a lot. ”
GM Hnat Domenichelli was indeed pretty active on the transfers front this summer.
Sadly, Tim Heed left for the KHL but the club had Santeri Alatalo and Samuel Guerra locked in, and landed a long term deal with Mirco Müller. Complementary players like Reto Suri, Dario Bürgler or Thomas Wellinger signed elsewhere and Jani Lajunen was not extended but the best news was the return of Daniel Carr, this time for a whole season.
The Canadian is simply projected to be the best forward in the league with his 3.2 Win Shares. We have him at 57 points, as he was a point per game last season (small sample size, we know) but also scored the equivalent of 60 and 76 NL points the years before. He also showed up very high in our tracking for Play Building and shot assists. A duo Arcobello-Carr could literally set fire to the league.
Mark Arcobello is also among the top players in the league, at the 92nd percentile and a 50 points projection. At 33 years old, his production is decreasing but he remains above the 90th percentile for both shot assists and shooting. Moreover, his Defence value is almost at the very top. That is an elite topline center.
Luca Fazzini would have been one of the top free agents next summer but he just inked a contract to stay with Lugano till 2027. He had a rebound season last year after two disappointing exercises. Definitely an offensive weapon, he is one of the most active shooter in the league. He needs to be fed with pucks but Lugano has the two guys we just mentioned above for that.
Mikkel Boedker probably was expecting better of himself last season. He still was a productive offensive weapon, even if finishing was not always there. Our tracking has him in the top-10% in the league for Play Building and also more passing than shooting in the offensive zone. He wasn’t playing on the top line so far this pre-season so it will be interesting to see how he performs without an Arcobello by his side.
Raphael Herburger was an interesting addition last year as a depth center. He didn’t produce at his EBEL level from 2020 but is impact on Play Building and shot assists gave Lugano’s third line some opportunities.
And that depth will need to step up a bit if Lugano wants to secure a spot in the top-6 of the league without too much sweat. Alessio Bertaggia will continue to be an offensive dynamo. Troy Joseph was given a chance and will bring some muscle and secondary scoring. Calvin Thürkauf will try to take another step in his development after a difficult year in Zug.
But mostly, the team will have to trust his young guns to fill the fourth line with some of Loic Vedova, Riccardo Werder, Evan Tschoumi or Yves Stoffel. But that is also part of the plan as explains Flavio Nodari: “We have an additional medium/long term goal (3-5 years), we aim to have at least one third of our players trained within the organization.”
On the blue line
Lugano has been struggling on the left side of its defence for a couple years now as all their imports and Romain Loeffel are all being right handed. Enters Santeri Alatalo. Champion with Zug, playing with a Swiss licence, he checked a lot of boxes for a team with a long term plan. Alatalo also has an interesting profile of playing better and better with the years, reaching 2.4 Win Shares this season, at the 96th percentile. Projected at 31 points, Alatalo is a all-around defenceman and ranks close to the top-10% in all of Transition, Play Building, Shot assists and Shooting volume. He wasn’t used to be a number 1 in Zug, as Raphael Diaz was there, so it will be interesting to see how Alatalo adapts to a bigger role.
Romain Loeffel will probably play his last season in Ticino and he is already rumored in Bern for next season. In the meantime, Loeffel is also a very complete player, ranking high in all categories. He has known better scoring days though, so we will see if age is slowly catching up or if he can rebound under McSorley.
Samuel Guerra was an interesting choice but Lugano clearly needed to strengthen that left side for good and maybe give time to Elia Riva to continue growing. Guerra was used to play top-pair minutes with Magnus Nygren in Davos but he remains a support player, not impactful on Transition but who can jump in in the offensive zone.
Mirco Müller might be one of the biggest unknown this season. Playing a limited role in the NHL, he enjoyed a better environment in Sweden last season where he scored the equivalent of 29 NL points. However, Müller is a big body more adapted to defensive assignments even though he can skate decently and make a good first pass. He could be a rock on a second pairing, playing a lot of tough minutes.
The rest of the defence has veterans Alessandro Chiesa and Matteo Nodari but more essentially young players like Elia Riva or Bernd Wolf, who adapted well to the NL last season. Prospects Jari Näser and Alessandro Villa could also hunt for a few minutes and fitting that long term plan of in-house development of players.
Goalies
Niklas Schlegel had a really good season last year, maybe not enough talked about. He managed to play a lot of games in a row, as Lugano didn’t really have a back-up because of Covid issues, and kept offering good performances. In our tracking he saved over 10 goals compared to expectations in 42 games, producing a Quality Start (allowing less goals than expected) 67% of the time. He will again have the lion’s share of the calendar this year as Lugano will have to chose between two very young goalies in Davide Fadani or Thibault Fatton to back him up. Two prospects that might be getting the big job in a few years.
Projection for the season
Our model projects all games in the season to get a projected standings. Note that points are given according to game probabilities, meaning if team A gets a low 33% chance of winning a game, they get still 1 expected point (33% of 3pts). That is why, right now, even Ajoie is projected at 63 pts. But what matters is the relative difference between teams as you will see then the standings is revealed.
Lugano has fixed several holes by signing two elite players in Carr and Alatalo, but depth remains an issue. Lugano has the 6th attack, 8th defence and 7th goaltenders duo in the league according to our model, so no real weaknesses but no real strengths either. The club should be in the mix for securing that 6th spot with Fribourg and Bienne. Can they do better? If things go well, or bad for a team projected above them...
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You can also find some more statistics on NL Ice Data here: nlicedata.com