After a fantastic Scottish weekender – and by that I mean the weekend was great and not necessarily the hockey – it’s back to the grindstone as I’m left thinking about what were the top five things we learnt this weekend?
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| Edinburgh |
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| Dundee |
- Dundee can teach us how to defend – We found ourselves giving up a dominant 4 goal lead on Saturday (not for the first time with the 16/17 team) as we struggled to decide whether to stay back or keep our foot on the gas. It’s easy with hindsight, but as the Stars showed us the day after, play a disciplined defence, drag the oppo forward, and hit with speed on the counter. Simple.
- Tired team, tired tactics? – Even the fans got tired on Sunday as we kept trying the same thing with the same players – everyone except the Stars seemed shattered. The fans had the excuse of too many beers in Edinburgh, and some of the Brits were on their fifth game in nine days, but Thommo and Jerry didn’t – and it needed something or someone a bit different to unpick that pesky defence. Okey had virtually played himself into a standstill at the end of the weekend.
- Dundee can teach us how to attack on the break – Two breakaway goals, and two on the powerplay whilst we dominated the play. Vinny Scarsella continued his tactics from last year and gambled when play broke down, and they probably had more clean goal attempts than we did through being decisive and taking the shot rather than trying to pass the puck into the net. Hopefully when we do this weekend’s video work, it’ll feature what they did right as much as what we did wrong. (Pavel Vorobyev might have a few highlights to share with us too after his hattie on Saturday)
- Streak ends at five, but five outa six ain’t bad - As we’ve said previously, last year we won 34 out of 52 in the league, which equated to a 65% win ratio. For the non-Maths grads, 5 out of 6 = 83%, and if we slip up on Saturday, then 5 out of 7 still equals 71%!
- There’s only one Yared Hagos – Considering he hasn’t played competitively this year Yared looked pretty sharp and pacey enough for this league. Scored on his second shift, and played a nice combo of forward and defensive play all evening. Hopefully with some conditioning and match practice he’ll get some stamina back, as he was soon gassed and looking to get to the bench, but he gave a strong first impression – and he seemed delighted with the reaction of the travelling fans.
One final thought to leave you with is a quick CHL update
for those of you who haven’t been following the competition since we exited at
the group stage. Red Bull Salzburg were knocked out immediately by SC Bern, who
will now play JYP who we saw in 15/16. HV71 won their first elimination round
against Lukko Rauma (a team the Panthers played in 14/15) and they now face
Sparta Prague in the last 16. Frolunda Indians (the other remaining team we
faced in 15/16) seem to be the team to beat again, and seem set to make the
last 8 after beating Eisbären Berlin 6:1 in the first leg.
Cheers,
Tony.
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