2016 comes and with it, 3 games in 3 nights. Two on the road and at different ends of the country too with a home game at the House Of Steel chucked in the middle. Three not easy games either as you will find out too. This is the business end of the season now and 24 games left to decide if we will retain the Monteith Bowl or it will be in someone else's cabinet come the 20th of March.
Our first game of 2016, comes with a visit over the Pennines to the Silver Blades Arena in Altrincham to face Omar Pacha's Manchester Storm and with the strange face-off time of 3:00pm. Yes you read that right, we are facing off at 3:00pm so don't think of turning up at Storm's usual face off time at 7:30pm and expect us to be playing: chances are we will be all on our way home at this time! Unless you are somebody like me, who's staying over for a few extra beverages.
The record against the Storm in "The Shelter" is damn good, two games played there - one in pre-season and one in the Challenge Cup - and two wins for us. A 4-2 win followed by a 4-1, both times seeing the Steelers come from behind. However, Storm on their day can be a tough nut to crack and have already run league leaders Cardiff Devils close in Altrincham: Devils finally coming out on top in a 14 goal game by 8-6 after trailing 6-4 with just over 11 minutes left to play.
Fast forward 24 hours, and the two teams lock horns again. This time in the House Of Steel where Paul Thompson's men have only been beaten twice this season (Coventry and Nottingham). Steelers won the first encounter 3-1, and squeaked home in the second 5-4. Levi Nelson's goal late in the second period settled the contest after Storm had produced an amazing second period of their own when they scored 4 unanswered goals in less than 10 minutes to completely erase a Steelers lead. Safe to say, if that isn't a warning shot about the untapped potential of the Storm roster then what actually is? Think about it.
Our final game of three in three comes Sunday night and back to Murrayfield to face the Edinburgh Capitals for the last time in regular season. Capitals won the first two, in Sheffield and on own ice, before Steelers bounced back with a 6-1 win in Ice Sheffield in early December where Colton Fretter notched a hat-trick. Capitals have offence if you give them the chance but unfortunately they a defence that does tend to leak goals; 138 in 30 league games isn't a good sign if you are Riley Emmerson and unless it is plugged: it will cause Capitals to miss out again on the end of season play-offs. And as of tonight (New Year's Eve), they have lost eight games in a row! Again, not good.
So with those facts in mind, how do we think it will pan out?
- Storm (Away): Would be a tough one, especially with our rumoured injury list of five possible imports being out. I still think we will go and win it though, probably about 3-1.
- Storm (Home): The warning (sorry about the puns) was there in the last encounter, and we might get another one on New Year's Day. But we should get through this one, I'm saying 4-2.
- Capitals (Away): Depends on the mental and physical fatigue of the roster, and that could see us come unstuck again. But if we can take advantage of their leaky D, and put pressure from the get go on Chubak, we will win. I reckon we can get this, say 5-3.
And that concludes the previews, enjoy your hockey.
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