FSB writer, and Stingrays and Steelers webcast commentator, Jonathan Fearnley gives us his take on how the Stingrays roster stacks up for the forthcoming season.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing so I’m going to use it to write this preview.
I’ll look back on the 2014/5 Hull Stingrays with the benefit of hindsight on a season where everything went wrong/right, while knowing the reality lies somewhere in between.
After 5 enjoyable/trophyless years replacing Sylvain Cloutier with Omar Pacha was a shock/necessity that resulted in the Stingrays stuck at the foot of the table/winning the conference. It may have been a move that fan base couldn’t understand/justified at the time but looking back now it’s clear it was the wrong/right move. The Stingrays are at their lowest/highest ever position in the league and the crowds stayed away/flocked back. They won hardly any games/the Gardiner Conference and missed the playoffs/made the Final Four.
Losing Tendler, Bowns, Silverthorn, Ondrej, Smith and Doucet from last year’s roster was a blow they never recovered from/wasn’t as big a problem as most people thought it might be.
Rookie player-coach Omar Pacha made a very naive/smart decision to recruit a young team. The kids, mostly with a college background were found out/excelled at the pro level and most won’t be returning next year/are already being looked at by the bigger clubs across Europe. Given a chance to show what they could do they demonstrated they were not as good/every bit as good as the players the Stingrays didn’t re-sign. What a difference experience/not having guys just playing out their careers makes.
Netminder David Brown wasn’t an impact player/was a star and the Stingrays had him to blame/thank for a lot of their defeats/victories. He came with a good pedigree but was no better than the other Gardiner netminders/the new Dan Bakala.
Pacha wanted all of his forwards to be versatile, strong skaters, fast and good at both ends of the ice. In Zach Hervato, Eric Galbraith, Jordan Mayer, Matt Larke, Carl Lauzon, Cory Tanaka, Matty Davies, Sam Towner and Dominic Osman the Stingrays had forwards that lacked top tier scoring talent/excelled defensively and when they came up against the bigger, more physical teams they found themselves outmuscled/able to skate right by them. Pacha wanted 3 balanced lines and he got that, although the first line wasn’t able to replicate what previous Stingrays teams had done/and the 3rd line was one of the strongest in the league and one of the main reasons they did so well. By spreading their talent out they couldn’t cope with the opposition’s top lines/didn’t overwork anyone and had extra energy that paid dividends after long road trips and 2 games in 2 nights.
Matt Larke came with an underwhelming record/a chance for his talents to be properly utilised for the first time as a pro. Jereme Tendler came to the Stingrays with a similar career background and Larke is no Tendler/already a fan favourite. The extra ice time didn’t produce the required output/saw him as one of the Stingrays top scorers and his partnership with Carl Lauzon wasn’t anything like the one Lauzon had with Guillaume Doucet/was one of the most successful in the league.
Lauzon saw his form from last year drop off/continue and with his greater responsibility he tried to do too much/upped his level of play. Cory Tanaka showed why he never quite made it in North America/was touted as being a better prospect than his brother Cale and his enthusiasm and hustle on the ice was all he had to offer/drew penalties, riled the opposition and earned him plenty of points.
Matty Davies’ development stalled without Cloutier’s guidance/continued and he lost/retained his place in the GB squad. His points output decreased/increased like it has for the each of the last few seasons. Sam Towner wasn’t quite up to playing a regular shift/made the step up and saw his game improve with the extra ice time.
Zach Hervato tried to play/played like a big man and was just too small/quick for the big guys he was up against. Jordan Mayer and Eric Galbraith both had good success in college but that experience wasn’t much use to a last place team/was invaluable in the final few months of the season.
The returning Dominic Osman was never going to set the league on fire/a reliable source of goals again. Using Osman on defense occasionally showed how thin the roster was/useful his versatility could be.
The bigger offensive and defensive zones showed up the Stingrays tactically/allowed them to prosper through the skating, stickhandling and puck movement skills Pacha had loaded up on. It also disadvantaged/suited the inexperienced/positional sense of CJ Chartrain and Jamie Chilcott. Kurtis Dulle provided lots of 2 minute minors/leadership and his powerplay slapshot meant the Stingrays changed last year’s effective PP style/had yet another PP weapon. Yan Turcotte added yet more penalty minutes/physicality. The strong outlet passing of Turcotte and Chartrain was negated/made more valuable by the larger defensive zones.
Was the player-coaching role responsible for Omar Pacha’s level of play slipping/recognition as one of the league’s premier offensive d-man? Either way, the fans are united in the wish to have Cloutier back next season/Pacha signed up to a long contract.
This was a Stingrays team that didn’t have a lot of EIHL experience/know they were supposed to lose every week. That lack of familiarity with the league/ fear saw them embarrassed by/embarrassing the big teams on a regular basis.
This was a season to forget/remember for the Stingrays and their fans are already wondering if there will be a/looking forward to next season.
No comments:
Post a Comment