Nico Hischier, Timo Meier suffer devastating fate at the hands of a would-be future teammate

That opened the door for Switzerland even wider. After beating Norway in the semi-finals, Hischcier and Co. had to beat Finland in the championship. Finland got a boost from a returning Aleksander Barkov, but the home-ice advantage was expected to give the Swiss team a boost. 

Unfortunately, for the third time in a row, we had ov ertime to settle championship hockey. 

We say unfortunately because things did not go well for Hischier, Meier, Jonas Siegenthaler (who couldn’t play due to an injury), and the rest of Switzerland. Konsta Helenius, one of the young forwards for the Buffalo Sabres, scored for Finland about halfway through the first overtime. 

On paper, everything was pointing to this year for Nico Hischier, Timo Meier, and Switzerland at the IIHF World Championships. For two years in a row, Switzerland got all the way to the gold medal game and lost. However, there was a clear advantage this year.

Now, there were teams sending some decent rosters. While Team USA basically lost everyone outside of Matthew Tkachuk from their gold medal Olympic team, Team Canada sent Macklin Celebrini, Sidney Crosby, Evan Bouchard, Robert Thomas, and Ryan O’Reilly, among other NHL players. They failed to obtain a medal.

That opened the door for Switzerland even wider. After beating Norway in the semi-finals, Hischcier and Co. had to beat Finland in the championship. Finland got a boost from a returning Aleksander Barkov, but the home-ice advantage was expected to give the Swiss team a boost. 

Unfortunately, for the third time in a row, we had overtime to settle championship hockey. 

We say unfortunately because things did not go well for Hischier, Meier, Jonas Siegenthaler (who couldn’t play due to an injury), and the rest of Switzerland. Konsta Helenius, one of the young forwards for the Buffalo Sabres, scored for Finland about halfway through the first overtime. 

If that names sounds familiar, it’s because he was almost a New Jersey Devils draft pick. In 2024, as the NHL Draft board was shaping up, three defensemen were falling down the board: Anton Silayev, Zeev Buium, and Sam Dickinson. Also on the board was Helenius, who was a Liiga center with a ton of upside but also a ton of risk. 

The Devils drafted Silayev, which is starting to look like the wrong decision, but after the draft, then-GM Tom Fitzgerald explained his decision. 

""I turned to Dan MacKinnon next to me because we really liked the Finnish center as well. I said, the defenseman or the center? And he said, 'The defenseman is 6'7, he can skate and he's mean.' And I'm like, okay, we'll take the D. ""

Tom Fitzgerald, former Devils GM

That Finnish center was obviously Helenius. Now, two years later, we're learning about Silayev losing ice time in the KHL and Helenius made his playoff debut a few weeks ago. And now this. The young center just scored the latest version of the Golden Goal.

Hischier's hope is to never play in this tournament again. After three years of heartbreak, the goal has to be to make the playoffs and go deep. With Sunny Mehta at the helm, we hope this is the last time we talk about the IIHF World Championships.

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