Kloten stays in the playoffs with their first win in eleven years. Their relaxed attitude helped them beat the ZSC Lions, but the road to the semi-finals is still very long.
20.03.2025, 00:53
SDA
"They won't turn the series around, but it would be nice if we could still annoy them a little." This is not a statement from a Kloten player, but from a fan at the Schluefweg stadium on Wednesday evening. The 2:1 against the ZSC Lions will probably remain a footnote in the end, but for Kloten it is a relief and certainly significant.
They had waited a long, long time for this win in the playoffs. In 2014, they reached the final against Fribourg-Gottéron. This was followed by a 0:4 against the ZSC Lions, and in 2016 Kloten made the playoffs for the last time, also losing 4:0 to Davos in the quarter-finals. So it's been eleven years since the airport city last celebrated a win in the playoffs, losing eleven games in a row - until Dario Meyer's 2:1 goal three minutes before the end.
Meyer's surprising goal
"I didn't even realize it had gone in," says the lucky goalscorer about the decisive moment. "When I then saw Morley cheering, the relief was naturally huge." Kloten were clear underdogs against the champions from the outset, and with a 3-0 deficit they finally had nothing to lose. Was this the secret to scoring at least twice after just one goal in the first three games? Meyer actually thinks so.
"The mood in the dressing room was really that we had nothing to lose and there was a certain looseness," the 28-year-old from Bern confirmed to Keystone-SDA. "That can also go in the wrong direction, that you let it ride, but today we had the right mindset." That's what you have to bring to the ice on Friday.
ZSC a force at home
Then another much bigger task awaits. The ZSC Lions lacked a bit of consistency away from home on Wednesday and did too little to secure the decisive fourth win. That will be very different in front of a home crowd. They have now strung together ten home victories in the playoffs in their fortress in Zurich-Altstetten, and they don't want to be caught out by Kloten a second time.
"That was probably our best game of the series today," says Kloten captain Steve Kellenberger. Nevertheless, he says: "There's still a lot to improve." He and his team believe in the big turnaround. If they succeed, it would be one of the biggest sensations in Swiss ice hockey history.
