Now then everybody, it's here. Later than I anticipated but I am finally doing the preview of this weekend's action. Live from Jönköping in Sweden, it's your big weekend preview for the Steelers games.
We start tonight with a game in the car park across the road or as David Simms calls it, the en-suite. We play these folks:
Yes we entertain Michal Dobron and his Edinburgh Capitals in the second leg of the Challenge Cup quarter final. The tie is on a bit of a knife edge it has to be said after the first game in Murrayfield. Twice the Caps led through Michael D'Orazio and top scorer Pavel Voroybev, but an understrength Steelers side - missing both Andi Valdix and Yared Hagos - levelled the tie thanks to a brace of goals from stand-in third line centre Guillaume Desbiens.
Both Valdix and Hagos are to be missing tonight, Valdix definitely with his hand injury and I think Hagos will not be fully recovered from his concussion either. With Hagos' injury you have to be really careful as one more hit to the head could easily end a career, just look at Eric Lindros and more recently see how many games Sidney Crosby has missed in the NHL with concussion type symptoms. That's why I doubt Hagos will play, in fact I don't think he'll play again until the second week of December if it's dealt with correctly. We need to step up and play for the club as well as our injury stricken team-mates, and if we show the passion that we have then we can overcome them.
Then on Sunday, we have this road trip to the easiest (sarcasm alert) place in the Elite League to win:
A trip down to South Wales to play the leaders of the league, and a team that seems to have our number this season already. Devils lead the league from us in second (on regulation wins from Belfast) by seven points, an advantage which could be extended further depending what they (Cardiff) do at struggling Coventry tonight. It's a game we have to win and keep the gap within manageable limits, lose and we could be conceivably 11 points adrift come the end of Sunday. That would be incredibly hard to pull back; it would be like scaling Everest.
So that's the games previewed, what about the score predictions then? Well, even despite the absence of both Valdix and Hagos I think the team will step up as one and overcome the Capitals 5-2 (7-4 on aggregate) to set up a semi-final against either the puddy cats or Braehead. Sunday will be much much harder, and it's sadly a game I cannot see us winning. We might have had half a chance if we had both the injured Swedes in the line-up but I think it's going to be a 4-2 home win there in IAW, could conceivably end up worse than that as much as it pains me to type that.
Well that's how I see the Steelers weekend unfolding, how about you? I'm now off to get myself changed and do some exploring around Jönköping before going to watch HV71 take on Luleå in the Kinnarps Arena this evening. See you later folks.
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