Zug vs Rapperswil-Jona - Game 4

And Zug escaped the trap

It must have been one hell of a sigh of relief inside Zug locker room after the game. As much as we would have loved to see Zug with their back against the wall in a game 5 against Rappi, we can understand how glad they must have been to avoid that perspective…

In some ways, that game 4 was a must-win for the heavy favorite this season. And they accomplished the mission as well as they could.

First they managed to hold off the red wave in the first 15 minutes, eventually even opened the score through Martschini. Then they took Rappi by surprise by having a really strong 15mn of dominance through the end of the first and the beginning of the second period. Even up 3-0 on the scoreboard, Zug continued to push.

However, Martin Ness goal came a bit out of nowhere. As the puck was stuck under Genoni skate, Ness managed to push it into the net before the referees could blow their whistle. Then a 4v4 situation allowed another high-danger pass goal from Steve Moses… At 3-2, Rappi was suddenly very much alive.

But Zug got something they really needed, or something that Rappi managed to escape before: a little help from Lady luck.

On two occasions, Zug replied to a goal prolonging Rappi hopes of tying the game. First a puck hit Simion leg to beat Nyffeler. Then, after Rappi scored another high-danger pass goal, Klingberg beat a very passive Nyffeler top corner from an impossible angle. A shot that goes in once in a ….. And that was it.

Another close game but another win powered by the finishing talent of Zug forwards. Good enough to move past a very impressive team of Rapperswil and get a ticket for the finals.

The numbers

Looking at both teams’ chances during this game, it looks closer than what the score tells us. Obviously, score effects played a role here, but Rappi had a good fight and especially against the best defensive in the league during the regular season. They generated as many high-danger chances as Zug, scored on three of them. On 14 high-danger passes, they were able to connect on 8. In comparison, Zug tried 17 and was only able to connect on 2 of them.

Let’s not spoil our series preview between Zug and Geneva here, but Zug will have to make some defensive adjustments here, as generating offence through high-danger passes is one of GSHC’s strength.

As you can see in the tables below, Zug generated more chances on walk-in plays (skating into the slot with the puck) and plays, as Rappi made some big mistakes at their bluelines or in the neutral zone and allowed Zug to attack the high-danger zone with speed. They scored twice on rushes.

Rappi generated more on high-danger (or Royal-Road) passes plays and scored three goals on these as we already said.

Nyffeler’s performances have been quite uneven against Zug. Yesterday, he did not have a very good game as he can be blamed for some the goals against him, had more goals allowed than he should have and finished the game with a save percentage of 82%. Now, looking at the whole playoffs, he was key for Rapperswil and he’s one of the reason his team was able to qualify for the playoffs and reach the semis.

On the other hand, Genoni did have a good game. Despite many high-danger chances for Rapperswil, he had a positive Goals Saved above expected.

For Zug, if we except empty-net shots, Klingberg had a dominant game with 1 goal, 6 shot attempts and generated 0.62 expected goals. Abdelkader was also very active around the net, scored on the rush once and got two assists. Among forwards, none were as active as these two, but many participated in the offence created, which is a normal in a team as deep as Zug.

For Rapperswil, Eggenberger had a really strong game and generated 0.82 expected goals on his shots. He got rewarded with Rappi’s third goal. Moses and Ness are the other scorers of that game and are also among the players generating the most for Rapperswil. Unfortunately for Rappi, none of their first-line players (Cervenka-Schweri-Clark) were among the best.

We’ll probably publish the series preview between Zug and Geneva tomorrow in the morning. So stay tuned! You can also follow us on our Twitter pages here and here or suscribe to our newsletter below if you don’t want to miss our coming articles.

Find more statistics tracked by Thibaud on his Tableau’s page here: https://public.tableau.com/profile/thibaud.chatel#!/vizhome/NLAPlayoffs2021/GameReport

Or some more statistics on NL Ice Data here: nlicedata.com