‘Kovar also has to play better’

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After only three hours of sleep, Dan Tangnes is back in his coaching office the morning after the second semi-final defeat in Geneva. And further breaks apart the last appearance of his Zugers. Once again, the subject is the team’s Achilles heel this season: consistency.

What the Norwegian emphasizes in the next team meeting: “The players must trust the system, each other and themselves.” Tangnes then explains what happens on the ice when his team is so restrained by Servette that they can barely attack. “We tend to leave our structure when things are not going well. We lose the ability to make quick decisions with the puck.” The result: You fight your way through and waste energy chasing the disc.

One-on-one 40-minute interview with Kovar

The team meeting lasts half an hour. But Tangnes does not come out of the dressing room after that. There follows a 40 minute one-on-one interview – with his captain Jan Kovar. Did the two discuss adjustments in the storm lines? “No”, said the EVZ coach candidly, “about the fact that he too has to play better.”

The 44-year-old did not make a slug of the Czechs, but gave him videos of how he could have reacted in certain situations. “I don’t want to trigger him, I want to support him and take him out of his comfort zone. He’s a warrior and no one embodies the quality of finding a way back to peak performance like him.”

Are there line adjustments?

What does Kovar say about Zug’s performance in the third semi-final match? “It wasn’t good enough for a semi-final. We didn’t find the chase mode.” That should change today. However, the coach’s lines of concern are not yet so deep that he thinks aloud about line adjustments.

As a reminder, in the last final against ZSC, Tangnes replaced Hofmann with Herzog in game four before the turn in the parade storm alongside Kovar and Simion. “But we were 0:3 behind and there was so much frustration that communication in the lines was lost.” That’s not the problem now. Nor lack of energy. Prefer? “The head decides what the body does,” says Tangnes. Mental toughness is needed.

Source : Blick