Milano Hockey Club filled in another piece of its puzzle on July 16, 2026, announcing the signing of Italian goaltender Edoardo Berti on a one-year contract for the rossoblù's debut win2day ICE Hockey League season. The 21-year-old left-catching netminder, born in Aosta on September 27, 2004, becomes the third player from the Aosta-to-Switzerland development pipeline to choose Milano as the next step, following forwards Tommaso Madaschi and defenceman Olmo Albis. The pattern is no longer a coincidence. It is a recruitment thesis.
A goaltender shaped across four Swiss organizations
Berti's résumé is a tour of the French-speaking Swiss youth system. After leaving the HC Aosta Gladiators setup, he moved through Lausanne HC, Forward-Morges, HC Ajoie and Genève-Servette HC, completing his formative years inside one of Europe's most demanding goaltending ecosystems. The Swiss players' license he holds is not a footnote; under ICE Hockey League roster rules it changes how a club can deploy him within the import quota, which is part of why Milano, a brand-new entry to a 14-team, four-country league, is comfortable making him a first-day signing rather than a depth add.
The senior numbers are thin but instructive. Berti has nine Swiss League appearances across the last three seasons, split between HC Sierre and the GDT Bellinzona Snakes, the latter on loan. His save percentage has swung from a sparkling .955 on two games with Sierre in 2023/24, to .929 in two further Sierre appearances the following year, down to .908 in seven starts with Bellinzona in 2025/26. Read in isolation, the slide looks like regression. Read against his workload, it is the opposite: heavier usage, harder minutes, and a transition into a full starting role rather than spot relief.
What the MyHockey League stint really says
Between the Sierre cameos, Berti spent 2024/25 as the starter for HCV Martigny in the MyHockey League, the third tier of Swiss hockey. He played 19 regular-season games, posted a 1.61 goals-against average, and won 14 of them, then added five playoff appearances. That is the body of work the rossoblù are buying. The ICE Hockey League is a significant jump in pace, shot volume and travel, and Berti's path suggests a goalie who has been load-managed carefully, cycled between development leagues and senior exposure, and is now being asked to absorb one more rung.
On the international side, Berti has represented Italy at two U20 World Championship Division I B tournaments, the second tier below the top flight, accumulating five appearances with a .914 save percentage across both events. It is not a headline-grabbing résumé, but it is the kind of international grounding that tends to travel well when a young goaltender is asked to step up a level.
The Smith-Berti tandem and the Lindfors factor
Milano HC will not be asking Berti to carry the crease alone. The club has already paired him with the italo-Canadian Jake Smith, and confirmed that the tandem will work under goalie coach Sakari Lindfors, a Finnish specialist whose career has spanned the NHL, the Finnish Liiga and the SHL. That structure is the single most important detail in this signing. A 21-year-old coming off a seven-game Swiss League run and a 19-game third-tier starter workload is, on paper, a project. With Lindfors shaping his daily work and a veteran like Smith alongside, the project has a runway.
There is also a tactical read here. Smith is the presumed number one; Berti is the high-upside 1B with a left catch that complements a right-catching partner and gives a coach the option to flip looks on back-to-backs or to deploy the goalie whose style best matches a given opponent. For a Milano team that has built itself around veterans aged 28 to 32, Berti is the long-tail investment, the kind of profile that gets developed inside a winning room rather than rotated in cold from the outside.
The Valle d'Aosta pipeline and what Milano is actually buying
Berti said it himself in the club release: he wants to be, alongside Madaschi and Albis, "an example and a stimulus for the many very young players of the North-West who can dream of a professional future without necessarily emigrating." That is not a generic young-player quote. It is the public statement of the rossoblù's project, which is to convert the legacy of Milano-Cortina 2026 into a domestic pipeline that funnels Italian talent into the ICE Hockey League rather than losing it indefinitely to Swiss junior setups.
There is a structural logic in three signings from the same region. All three grew up in Aosta, all three developed in Switzerland, and all three are now returning to Italian hockey at the highest level it has ever been offered domestically. Berti even shares the Bellinzona connection with Madaschi, who spent 2025/26 on loan at the Snakes and put up 19 points in 47 games. The familiarity is not incidental: it shortens the onboarding curve, accelerates the chemistry on a roster that the club says is essentially complete, and reinforces an identity that Milano is deliberately trying to build beyond a single season.
What to watch when the puck drops
Milano's first ICE Hockey League match is scheduled for September 18, with the first home game at the Fiera Ice Arena in Rho following in early October once the new 3,998-seat facility, with its NHL-sized 60-by-26 metre rink, is delivered. Berti will wear number 83. The crease picture will sharpen the moment training camp opens in August, with the rossoblù set to work out of Madesimo and Vipiteno before exhibition games against HC Lugano and HC Sierre, the latter being both a familiar haunt for Berti and one of Milano's announced partner clubs.
Whether Berti starts, backs up, or splits cleanly with Smith will tell us how quickly the rossoblù trust the Swiss-Italian track. The room, with Lindfors at the top end and a young left catch in development behind a seasoned italo-Canadian, is built for exactly that conversation. Berti's job is to make it a harder one than anyone expects.
Sources
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