Updated after Denis Malgin
Zurich is arguably the biggest organization in Swiss hockey right now as Bern is going through a reset. From budgets to roster and coaching staff, they invest every year massively in the team with only one goal: to win it all. The last title was only four years ago but most of the players from that season are gone and the current group has not yet won anything.
The club have brought a celebrity behind the bench with Rikard Grönborg and after finishing the regular season at the first place in 2020, the team only finished fifth last year, before getting eliminated by a superior Genève team in the semifinal.
And if time has not yet ran out for that group of players and staff, there has to be results in the next two seasons.
And if we emphasize on that point, it is because it sometimes felt like the team was more a sum of individualities than a real group executing a tight game plan. It is something hard to define but statistically Zurich was good everywhere last year but never great.
Whether it is transition, offensive zone play, defensive structure, nothing stood out to a point where, as we said, you don’t know if the team is just good only because the players are well above average. I would also add that with such a roster, Zurich would be expected to roll over the league. Rikard Grönborg has said on multiple occasions that his philosophy was to give a lot of freedom to players offensively, and really, most of the times it feels like it is up to one of the stars to unlock situations by himself and not thanks to the system.
Will that big mystery continue?
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
Not a lot of moves this summer besides slapshot legend Frederik Pettersson retired. But the club brought home another (two now) big names after Sven Andrighetto last year: defenceman Yannick Weber and Denis Malgin. And Justin Azevedo is the import replacing Pettersson. John Quenneville has signed as a 5th import that will in fact be allowed to play ! Which boosts our projection of course.
Andrighetto was a bit slow to adapt to the league last year but then he just took over the game. Our projection of 44 points might actually be a bit conservative as he scored 55 last season. His years of KHL still weigh in the projection for half of it. In our tracking he was one of the very best in Transition, solid in the offensive zone if not excellent but his individual talent is enough to make plays out of nothing on a regular basis.
Justin Azevedo arrives from the KHL where he scored the equivalent of 43, 45 and 51 points the last seasons. We have him projected at 47 points and the 96th percentile in Win Shares.
Denis Malgin is coming home too. We have him projected at 48 points this season and the 96th percentile for his 2.5 Win Shares. In our tracking, Malgin was a superstar in all of Transition, Play Building, Shot Assists and Shots volume. Quite the last minute addition…
Denis Hollenstein has been increasing his production since his arrival in Zurich. He is a shooter first but also shows up very high in both overall Offense and Defence metrics. The type of natural talent that complements playmakers like Andrighetto.
Garrett Roe has the best projection in points with 48 but his production dived in last year actually, compared to 2020 and before. He ranks at the 99th percentile for Defence and 98th for Shot assists. Not that impressive in Transition, that is just another natural talent to be scared of in the offensive zone.
Chris Baltisberger was dearly missed after his injury last year. Not that he scored a lot of points but he is very important in building plays, and another shooter to finish plays from Andrighetto or Roe.
Marcus Krüger is in the top-10% for Shot assists and has good overall Offense and Defence metrics. But otherwise he was not showing up really high in our tracking.
Simon Bodenmann is an offensive zone player with good instincts. Justin Sigrist is interesting in every department, we’ll see if he can continue to grow. Marco Pedretti is slowing down but still good at building plays and Dominik Diem is a good passer. Vincenzo Küng could be a nice surprise for secondary scoring, as a callup (?) from the GCK Lions.
With a projected 4th line all above the 40th percentile, Zurich has the second best group of forwards in the league according to our model. John Quenneville has won his try-out to be the fifth import and would fit on a third line.
At the blue line
Maxim Noreau has been a consistent elite player in NL since his arrival. Projected at 37 points, he ranks at the 97th percentile in the league for his 2.8 Win Shares. In our tracking, he is in the top-10% for all of Transition, Play building and Shots volume. And only the 89th for Shot assists (shame!).
Zurich has a rare one-two punch with the ability to ice Patrick Geering on another pair. Geering’s production is not comparable to Noreau’s but his overall play is great, enough to be at the 91st percentile with 2.1 Win Shares. In out tracking, he is a top-10% for Play Building and shows up well in Transition or Shots volume.
Christian Marti is a defensive specialist with some Transition skills. He follows Noreau like his shadow and the pair works very well together, like the Tömmernes-Jacquemet one.
Yannick Weber will be a great unknown for our model. As scoring is the only inputs for players coming from another league, his empty season last year because of Covid and very depth role before that do not give him a lot of credits. At 33 years old, we will see if he still can be a solid player in both zones and active in Transition as well. He is one of those depth NHL guy that will surely beat their projection at the end of the year. All the better for Zurich.
With Phil Baltisberger, Zurich has a very strong top-5. Dario Trutmann and Johann Morant are in the high 40th percentiles while young players Luca Capaul and Enzo Guebey are in the low 30th. Enough to give Zurich the fourth best defensive group in the league.
Goalies
Here lies the question mark. Both on the ice and in our model. 25 years old Ludovic Waeber had a decent year and played most of the season. In our tracking, his Save control (saves that put the puck out of danger) is good and he provided a Quality Start (allowing less goals than expected) 50% of the time, which is the league average. To sum it up, he has been more okay than great. And his play with Fribourg in 2020 is weighing negatively in the model. Which ends up with giving him 2.6 Win Shares and just the 33rd percentile in the league. Is he better than that? Surely. But Zurich clearly doesn’t have a starting goaltender to the level of Zug, Lausanne or Genève.
Lukas Flüeler is the veteran and is actually projected higher than Waeber at the 43rd percentile. But his game last year was very rough. Can he bounce back and split the games with Waeber? That would be a good news for Zurich.
But for our model, that is simply the worst goaltending duo in the league. Harsh, I know. We will see how wrong the projection will be…
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.
With all that fire power in offense and defence, Zurich is projected to end up 1st this season with Malgin and all five imports on the ice. With Yannick Weber and the goalies that could offer more than expected. But our skepticism on the game plan will remain, especially when the playoffs will come.
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You can also find some more statistics on NL Ice Data here: nlicedata.com