At last, Switzerland makes its mark
Once a hockey backwater, country now sending the likes of Hischier and other top talent to NHL
When Nico Hischier was born in 1999 in the mountainside town of Naters, exactly one Swiss born-and-trained player had been in the NHL — for exactly one forgettable game.
After Pauli Jaks tended goal for two periods in 1995, it took until 2001 for Reto Von Arx to become the first Swiss skater to make his NHL debut and many more years before the country had its first international hockey hero in Mark Streit.
Switzerland sent goaltenders David Aebischer and Martin Gerber, Streit and fellow defencemen Yannick Weber and Roman Josi to the NHL as its population surpassed eight million and more money went into developing the sport.
Last year, Switzerland finally topped the charts when the New Jersey Devils made Hischier the first Swiss player to go No. 1 in the NHL draft.
He is the latest in a suddenly strong line of skilled Swiss forwards emerging as NHL stars.
“It starts at a young age,” Hischier said. “There are some good coaches and some really good teams that you can develop (with). They do a great job to be able to go practice and be able to do school.”
Hischier is in the spotlight this weekend as he and the Devils return to his junior town of Bern, Switzerland, to practice and play an exhibition game before facing the Edmonton Oilers in Sweden to open the season.
He is the poster boy for this generation of Swiss talent that includes Minnesota’s Nino Niederreiter, San Jose’s Timo Meier, Nashville’s Kevin Fiala and Vancouver’s Sven Baertschi.
Those five players have already combined to play almost five times the number of games of all the Swiss forwards who came before them.
“Swiss hockey’s been growing a lot over the years and we’ve been making steps,” Meier said. “Mark Streit and then Nino Niederreiter got drafted pretty high. That was the age where I was kind of realizing that’s where I want to be and that’s what I’m working for.”
Streit, who retired last year, understands his place in Switzerland’s hockey pantheon, right there with Aebischer and Gerber as pioneers.
“Ten, 12, 15 years ago, nobody really talked about Swiss hockey,” Streit said. “Only a few, a handful, had been drafted. I think now, a few guys left a mark, so the teams know Swiss guys can play hockey.”
Streit is still Switzerland’s standard-bearer in hockey after playing parts of 10 seasons for the Canadiens, Islanders, Flyers and Penguins.
“Mark Streit was the first player, not goaltender, who made it in the NHL, and he showed a lot of people in Switzerland, including me and a lot of other guys, that it’s possible to make it with a lot of hard work,” said Josi, who is now captain of the Predators.
It might take some time for another transcendent talent like Hischier to come along, but forward Valentin Nussbaumer is a top prospect for the 2019 draft and centre Theo Rochette a top prospect in 2020.