As a Steelers fan we’ve seen plenty of big wins at the Arena, with Cups raised and Championships won, but last night was something special as we grabbed our first win in the CHL at the sixth time of trying – and my mind turned to a few stats and five things we all learned this week:
1> Say no to penalties – When we conceded early in the first period on the PK, I dreaded the worst, but it seems the Steelers have also learnt something this week too. Just say no!
2> EIHL in the CHL – We’ve now got a combined 3 wins from 14 games, one each for Braehead, Nottingham, and now Sheffield. As a league we’re now 50% against teams from Austria and Germany, each side winning their respective home legs, but a combined 0.00% from those from Sweden and Finland. We got back some bragging rights from our rivals across the league too!
3> 16/17 CHL minnows – Not only did we avoid the wooden spoon, which went to Poland with no points from six games, but I think we did better than France, Norway and Denmark too. Although the sample size is small, the latter two are significant scalps, and must help our CHL rankings a little in the years to come. (FR got two OTL’s from two teams, NOR got one win and one OTL from two teams, and DEN got one OTL and one OTW from their team)
4> Goal Difference – We ended up with -9 goal difference, which is obviously mainly down to the -7 thumping in Salzburg when we got into that third period penalty nightmare. Whilst it’s nothing to get too excited about, it did leave us with 5 other teams below us in those rankings. We also scored 11 goals, which was about average across all teams (23 teams scored less), so you can see what end of the ice caused the problems.
5> Luka Gracnar – Not a name known to many, but the game swung at the same time as the #33 for Salzburg took over the net. But he’s no stooge of a back-up – he played 43 times in the EBEL last year for Salzberg with a 0.915 save average. He’s also played 16 games in the last three year's CHL competitions, and a .967 save average, so he’s no mug – he just had a mare.
The one final thought must be to celebrate what Rod Sarich has brought to the Steelers over the last 12 years and over 500 games. Thanks for choosing Sheffield Rod, thanks for all the anxiety when you pinched forward at pace, thanks for all the goals scored and chances created, but mostly thanks for your blog in the Yorkshire Post – you’re one bizarre individual and we were lucky to have you.
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