\u201cWe kind of grew up together in Switzerland, playing on national teams, and then we kind of broke into the league (NHL) the same time we went the first All Star break we ever had. We went together to Miami with Mark Streit,\u201d said Niederreiter.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, we kind of grew into the league together, and we follow each other. We’re obviously very close friends, obviously with the national team and playing together in Nashville for a little bit. So, it’s being able to achieve it together basically within 20, 30 games are definitely very special.\u201d<\/p>\n
The duo will be back together again in a Swiss uniform at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics in February. Niederreiter was hoping the Jets would be having more success on the ice to help make game 1000 even more memorable and the dream of returning to the Olympics for the first time since 2014.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s definitely a special season, like you mentioned, and but honestly, at the end of the day, if you\u2019re not winning hockey games. It’s just not as fun as you want it to be. But like I said, it is very fortunate to have a chance to play 1000 games,\u201d said Niederreiter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Olympics is something which I’m very proud of playing once again. And obviously I know it’s most likely going to be my last Olympics, so it’s something which I definitely want to soak it all in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Switzerland has never won a medal at the Olympics in men’s hockey, but Josi and Niederreiter are hoping to build off their countries silver at the 2025 World Championships, they lost 1-0 to the United States in the gold medal game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just exciting that all the best players will be back. I think especially for us with Switzerland, there is definitely a lot of momentum from the past World Championships,\u201d said Josi.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Swiss hockey is in a good place; we got a lot of players in the NHL making big impacts on their teams. Nino\u2019s about to play his 1000th game which is really special. We\u2019ll have a really good team. Obviously, we know what we\u2019re up against with all the best players coming but we feel confident about our team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Niederreiter was recently asked by a Swiss reporter about who his starting five players would be and he listed Timo Meier, Nico Hischier and Kevin Fiala up front, Josi and Jonas Siegenthaler on defence. The 33-year-old said he would put himself on the second line somewhere, which didn\u2019t surprise Josi.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe should be on the top line. I think anyone who crosses paths with him, he\u2019s an extremely humble guy. I think you see it the way he plays too,\u201d said Josi.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a team first guy, like he\u2019s one of those guys you want on your team. Whatever he does he does it for the team, he\u2019s just an amazing person, really humble guy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Niederreiter wasn\u2019t surprised when he was told that Josi thought he should be on line one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, like I said, there were so many good Swiss players coming up, and I’m obviously a different kind of player than we have right now is Fiala, Hischier and Timo Meier, they’re obviously playing a different game than I do,\u201d said Niederreiter.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it’s a it doesn’t matter to me who’s in the first five players are out there, but at the same time, like I said, I’m definitely proud that I have a chance to play 1000 game tomorrow night, and the career I had so far, and hopefully I can top it off one day was a Stanley Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jets fans are hoping that Niederreiter can make it that last dream a reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe kind of grew up together in Switzerland, playing on national teams, and then we kind of broke…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-345574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}