Lausanne-Fribourg: “It feels good to take our revenge”

New victory against a National League leader for the LHC. After Zug, the Lausannois defeated Friborg Gottéron 6-3 on Wednesday at the Vaudoise Aréna. “It proves that we are going in the right direction,” says Lausanne Top Scorer Antti Suomela.

The LHC was however slow to start in this French-speaking derby. The Lausanne residents had difficulty keeping up with the pace of their opponents. Result, numerous losses of possession of the puck. It is therefore logical that the Vaudois were quickly led by Gottéron in the first third. The shot is signed Andrey Bikov (3^e).

It was Robin Kovacs who gave the LHC some breathing room. From behind the goal, the Swedish striker was able to use a rebound on goalkeeper Reto Berra to equalize in the 16th^e minute.

In the second period, Lausanne regained the lead thanks to a goal from Ken Jäger in a powerplay situation (24^e). A shot from Damien Riat was lodged between the legs of the Friborg goalkeeper. But Reto Berra’s loss of balance gave away the puck. Ken Jäger only had to push it into the back of the net.

Geoff Ward’s men have therefore rediscovered the joys of scoring in numerical superiority. This is one of the big weaknesses of this team. In 24 games, they have only scored 10 times in powerplay. Above all, the Lausanne players displayed one of the worst success percentages in the National League until Wednesday. With this goal from Ken Jäger, the current success rate is 12.99%. Note in passing that Zug does worse (11.76%).

The Vaudois had precisely emphasized this point in training at the start of the week. “We worked a lot, changed two or three things too, so it’s an important goal,” explained striker Tim Bozon after the match. Enough to put the team on the right track to change this statistic according to Lausanne Top Scorer Antti Suomela.

The lines have evolved quite a bit in recent matches, has the team finally found the right combinations to score more goals in special situations?

And in addition to the powerplay performance, the LHC did not concede when playing outnumbered. “We took stupid penalties, which really weren’t necessary. But the boxplay was monstrous,” added Tim Bozon.

Soon a new Top Scorer…