Rob Sirianni, He Plays Where He Wants

In typical Sheffield Steelers manner, last night the scoreline barely seemed to matter. A professional 2-0 defeat of the Edinburgh Capitals was completely overshadowed by the news that star sniper (and he of reportedly questionable workrate) Rob Sirianni had left the club.

Well, we say news. Sirianni's Elite Prospects page said he'd gone. Val Pusteria's website said he had signed. Even The Star said he'd gone. The Steelers? Couldn't be any more indignant in their refusal:

at the present time no player as left the club #fact

The amount of sass in that tweet...

Shame that Sirianni then tweeted this:

 Thx to all the steelers fans for all the support through the season. Wishing the guys best of luck the rest of the way#choochoo #beauties

Fairly decisive that. Anyway, however its come out, its out. Sirianni is no longer a Steeler. Apparently there's transfer fees involved but in a sport where you can give two weeks' notice to get out of anything you don't want to be involved with, I'd be interested to see how that is implemented.

Enough of the business side, how did Sirianni do for us?

In 32 games, Sirianni scored 18+24 for 42 points. A fairly decent return from a man who came into the side part way through the season. I can't help but feel like some people were disappointed by his output though, as after scoring a hat trick in his first game against Cardiff, he didn't do it every game. Unrealistic expectations and all that.

There are also the accusations that Sirianni was lazy, and didn't put as much effort in as some of his team mates. To this, I say - this is what a sniper is supposed to do. He is supposed to score goals, get himself in threatening attacking positions, and be a problem offensively. He was never the player to get into the real dirty areas, getting involved in physical board play - he was there to put the puck in the net. He has scored some vital goals for us over the 3 and a half months he's been in orange, and to suggest because he's not being a niggly little agitator that this somehow means he isn't putting in the workrate is ridiculous. He had a job, he did it. I sometimes think we wouldn't know what to do with a proper superstar.

The only issue I had with Sirianni's play is that he always seemed to believe he could do it all himself. Its a trait Robert Dowd often suffers from, but where Dowd seems to get away with it, it was another negative against Sirianni.

It will be interesting to see where we go from here. Obviously the return of Max Lacroix to full fitness negates some of the impact that losing Sirianni has - hopefully. We are now back on the import limit, so I wouldn't necessarily expect a replacement - unless Nate DiCasmirro decides to up and leave too, as the Star reports today that clubs are interested in taking him back to the continent.

For now though, lets just thank Rob for his contribution, and wish him well back in Italy.