2025 Worlds Report Card: Switzerland

It was another suboptimal World Championships for Switzerland, as they finished in the fifth place spot of Group A at the close of the 2025 tournament. After regressing offensively over the last few years, that trend continued in a big way in Czechia, and it ended up hurting the team’s hopes once again. 

All told the team went 0-0-4 in group play, and were shut out in three of those four losses. They then dropped their quarterfinal matchup, before managing to eke out a 3-2 win over Sweden in the placement game. It wasn’t pretty—just look at their goal differential—but there’s a lot of growth that can be done before both Milan 2026, and next year’s Worlds too. 

Offense | D 

The only reason this wasn’t an F, and when I say only reason I mean only reason, was because of the team’s fifth place game against Sweden. In the preliminary round, the Swiss were outscored 14-1, with the lone goal coming against Finland courtesy of Alina Müller. 

The quarterfinals weren’t much better, as the team got trounced by Czechia 7-0 en route to another last place finish in Group A. Three goals against the Swedes helped their offensive numbers slightly, but all told it was fairly disappointing. Additionally, outside of the aforementioned loss to Finland, they were outshot in every single game they played. The worst of the shot margins came against the United States, where the Swiss were limited to just six shots compared to the American’s 53. 

At the conclusion of the tournament, Switzerland shot just 3.51%, with a power play conversion rate of 7.14%. Before World’s started, I said the team would need to score some goals if they wanted to improve upon their positioning from last year. Instead, their scoring got worse, with just four total goals compared to seven in 2024. It’s not a great sign heading into the Olympic year, but hopefully they’ll be able to improve upon it before Milan in February. 

Defense | C-

Similarly to the offensive numbers, the defensive metrics were also pretty rough for the Swiss. The team finished last in the tournament on the penalty kill, after giving up six goals on 11 times shorthanded (a 45.5% kill rate — yikes). 

The reason I’m not being as harsh on the defensive numbers is because of how young the core of the blue line is for Switzerland. In our preview I talked about how Lara Christen was going to be a key contributor on defense for the team, and how the group would run through her. 

Christen is still just 22 years old. 

If you look at the group of defenders that went to Worlds for Switzerland, the average age of them all was 20.8 during the tournament (Shannon Sigrist turned 25 on April 20th), and they had a 16-year-old, Laure Mériguet, playing third pair minutes to boot. The oldest player on the blue line was Stefanie Wetli, who only turned 25 in February. 

This group is young; of course there were some growing pains as they tried to get their feet underneath them. I’m highly intrigued to see how they perform as the group continues to develop, which they all still have plenty of time to do. 

Goaltending | B-

There are both positives and negatives in this category, but before we jump into it I want to say it’s hard to truly judge goaltending based on the defensive metrics I mentioned above. 

However. 

Both Andrea Brändli and Saskia Maurer were altogether solid in their time in net, as both were peppered with shots throughout the tournament. Maurer in particular was a standout for me, as she finished with a .914 save percentage in three appearances (159 minutes). She was in net against Sweden for Switzerland’s one win, making 34 saves on 36 shots faced. Of the netminders that saw time in Group A, Maurer finished in fourth for both SV% and goals against average (2.26). 

Brändli on the other hand saw more action and had to face more shots in her four appearances. The goaltender was also solid for the Swiss, even with the .873 SV% in her 200 minutes of action. Considering the shot margins she saw in those minutes however, it’s because of Brändli that the Swiss didn’t lose by more. 

There’s definitely space to grow, but overall knowing these two have the crease moving forward is a welcome sight. 

MVP

Look, I know she’s the easy answer, but she’s the easy answer for a reason: it’s Müller for me and it’s not really close. 

With three points in the tournament, Müller finished tied for first on Switzerland in scoring. But personally, it’s not just about how she showed up on the scoresheet. 

With Lara Stalder out against Finland, Müller was awarded the captaincy for the contest. For well over a decade the forward has been a leader on this Swiss team, and again that was a key point throughout the 2025 tournament. Every single game, Müller was pushing her own way forward, and pushing the team forward because of it. 

Even with things as rocky as they were near the end of the round robin, Müller continued to show trust in her team and trust in what they were going to accomplish. 

“We’ve got to stay patient,” she told the IIHF after the game against Finland, when talking about the lack of scoring. “It’s happened to us before. But again, we’ve just got to believe that when it matters, we’re going to deliver.”

To me, outside of her accomplishments on the scoresheet, that leadership matters a lot too. Especially for a group as young as Switzerland’s. 

Maurer is another option that could work here, however altogether I was just in awe of Müller more often than not throughout the tournament. And I’m really excited to see that translate back into the last few games of the season with the Fleet coming up.