LUGANO, Switzerland – Six years after
making his National League A debut as a 16-year-old for local outfit EC Zug, the NHL lockout has taken well-traveled Anaheim Ducks defenseman Luca Sbisa back to a fertile breeding ground for one of
hockey's accelerating national programs.
His club
affiliation has switched from the northern part of the country to the Italian-speaking
south, and here, at HC Lugano, a glimpse can be offered of a handful of players
who have made international impacts before their 20th birthday.
Alessio
Bertaggia is the son of HC Lugano legend Sandro Bertaggia, whose retired No. 2
jersey commemorates the 18 years of service the defenseman gave the club.
Alessio, a forward who has accumulated 70 points in 82 WHL games with the
Brandon Wheat Kings, is a threat to break out at this year’s World Junior
Championships after earning his due as an 18-year-old under-ager with the Swiss national
junior team last December.
The Lugano
family ties also bind Phillipe and 18-year-old Tim Bozon, the latter of whom is
a 2012 Montreal Canadiens third round selection who has 31 points
in 19 games for the Kamloops Blazers, who are 17-1-0-1 and Canada’s top-ranked
junior team. The younger Bozon was better than a point-per-game producer with a
Lugano junior team in 2010-11 before making the leap abroad. He’s tallied 50
goals and 102 points through his first 90 games in Kamloops.
And then
there’s Luca Fazzini, who last Saturday scored one goal, assisted on another,
and recorded a plus-three rating in a 9-0 win over Rapperswil-Jona, a team that
prior to the blowout loss had been tied with Lugano with 29 points. He’ll have
the opportunity to make Switzerland’s roster at both the Under-18 Championships
and the World Junior Championships in the coming year.
While
Fazzini will have the option to play in North America – hungry junior teams are
likely to salivating over his rights at the next CHL import draft – he’s
beginning to establish his competency at the professional level in Switzerland,
where he’s already earning a paycheck. The 17-year-old has two goals, three
points, and a plus-three rating in 12 NLA games.
But if he
were to listen to Sbisa and follow the path of the emerging young stars who are
vying to raise Switzerland’s status internationally, there are effective
developmental grounds in North America.
“I think
maybe [for] five, six seven years, we’ve left this isolation. We were always in
Switzerland. We didn’t think we could make it over there, and then a few guys
actually went over there, did a good job, and it kind of inspired a lot of
young guys to go over there, and they’ve been doing really well. We’ve got
[Calgary forward] Sven Baertschi, Bertaggia from here, [Islanders forward] Nino
Niederreiter — all those guys have been doing a really good job,” said Sbisa,
who made his Swiss Olympic debut in 2010 as a junior hockey defenseman who had
recently celebrated his 20th birthday.
“I’ve always
said that there’s two ways you can go: either you establish yourself in this
league first, become one of the best players and then you try it, or you go at
the young age, what I did, too. I learned the North American game pretty early,
and I think more guys are trying to go that way, and it’s been working for
them.”
For Sbisa, several
years of changing cities and jerseys while dealing with ebbing and flowing NHL confidence,
the 22-year-old was more consistently able to exhibit his skills as one of the Anaheim
Ducks’ most well-rounded defenseman, offering a preview of the
trustworthy-in-all-situations capabilities of a career in bloom.
Fellow Swiss
national team member and Anaheim goaltending backbone Jonas Hiller played an
important role in Sbisa’s transition to Southern California following his
inclusion in the trade that sent Chris Pronger to Philadelphia on the day of
the NHL Draft in 2009.
“I didn’t
know anyone,” Sbisa said of his new surroundings. “I knew Joffrey Lupul, the
guy I got traded with. But other than that, I didn’t really know anyone.
[Jonas] is a nice guy. I met him one time before that, just playing with the
Flyers against the Ducks, and we hung out. We actually went for dinner. As soon
as he heard I got traded, he gave me a call. He made my life real easy over
there, introduced me to everyone and all that stuff.”
Appearing in
80 games for one club in one season – as he did in 2011-12 – was a first for
Sbisa, who has also called rinks in Philadelphia, Syracuse, Portland, Oregon
and Lethbridge, Alberta home over the last five seasons. It was also a
motivating factor in why he quickly wanted to join an NLA team.
“For me, I
mean I’m 22. I didn’t want to take the risk of not playing a full year,” he said.
“Hopefully they’ll figure [the lockout] out and we’ll get the NHL started.
“But for me,
I wanted to come over here as soon as possible. I think I had a good year last
year. I took one step at a time, developed as a player and played better as the
season went along. But I just wanted to keep going with that momentum I built
last year, and for me it was important to come over here right away. It’s a
great league. We’ve got a lot of star players that come over here, just like
tonight.
“It’s a good
level of hockey, and hopefully I can gain that one step that the other guys
don’t have once the season starts up.”
