Switzerland loses Stalder, and its Worlds shrink to one game
The Swiss captain hurt her knee playing for EV Zug and will miss the Nov. 6-16 Worlds in Denmark, where Switzerland opens against the USA.
Switzerland just lost the one player who could make the Americans nervous, and the Swiss tournament in Denmark gets a lot smaller because of it. Lara Stalder, the national team's captain, hurt her knee playing for EV Zug and will miss the Women's Worlds.
The timeline is six to eight weeks. The tournament runs Nov. 6 to 16, so there's no version of this where she's back in time.
The number
Stalder had 15 points in eight games for Zug this season. That's 1.9 points a game, by our count, from a 32-year-old who is still producing like she's 25. She got hurt in the second period of Saturday's game against Lausanne.
She isn't just a Swiss star. She's the résumé of the whole program. She was on the team that took Olympic bronze in Sochi in 2014. She put up 148 points in 134 games at Minnesota Duluth and was a top-three Patty Kazmaier finalist.
In Sweden she became the first woman to win the SDHL's MVP award, the Guldhjälmen, with a 42-goal season for Brynäs.
That's who leaves the lineup three weeks before the puck drops.
What it does to the group
Switzerland plays in Group A in Esbjerg against the USA, Czechia, Austria and Germany, and it opens against the Americans. Without Stalder, I don't see the upset. The Swiss can defend and they can get a hot goaltender, but somebody has to finish the one chance they get, and she was that somebody.
So the tournament shrinks to the Czech game. That's the one Switzerland can still win with structure and a goalie, and it's the one that decides how the round-robin feels. Austria and Germany are winnable, captain or not, but neither one is a night off.
Elisa Dalessi got the call for Switzerland's last Euro Hockey Tour stop in Sweden this week. That's a tune-up spot, not a replacement plan. The real answer is spread across the lineup: more minutes for the veterans and more pressure on an attack that just lost its trigger.
The W read: The Swiss were a team that could steal a medal-round game. Without Stalder, they're a team that has to grind out every goal, and Czechia will know it.
