HC Lugano are one of four Swiss teams through to the Round of 16, and are on the hunt for silverware after coming up just short in last year's NLA finals.

by Luke Fisher

PILSEN – Playing their first Champions Hockey League season, HC Lugano have surprised already with a win in Finland against Tappara Tampere in the group stage, where they topped their group over Liiga champions and Adler Mannheim.

They move on to the Round of 16 as the only first-year team left in the competition after a 7-4 win over HC Pilsen. We caught up with head coach Doug Shedden after the 3-3 return-match tie in the Czech city.

"It was almost one of those good things that we played the first game in our rink," admitted Shedden, whose side was the top seed for the matchup against Pilsen but hosted the first leg due to Pilsen's rink not being available. "It wasn't an easy game, they played hard and our penalty kill was probably the MVP of the game for us. They didn't have their number one goalie in, but a younger kid instead and he did really well."

Lugano move on in the CHL and are part of an all-Swiss last-16 tie against ZSC Lions Zurich – guaranteeing that at least one NLA team will make it into the Quarter-Finals for a second successive year. "It'll be a great test against Zurich; they're a great team in our league who we know very well, so it'll be interesting," said Shedden, who also coached EV Zug for six years in the NLA.

"We had goals after losing in the NLA finals last year. We're in four different championships this year with our own league, the Swiss Cup, Spengler Cup, and Champions League, and our goal is to win one of them – so we're going to be going out to try and achieve that and get a trophy this year."