Time to pray to the hockey gods - Five things I learnt w/e 18 December

It’s time to start praying to the hockey gods Steelers fans, as otherwise we might have to do a Nottingham and make do with a Cup or Play-off win this year. Despite playing some of the best hockey we’ve seen in recent years we’ve now followed up a one-point weekend, with a nil-point weekend. Although it’s only mid-December, it’s now crunch-time as we’ve lost our league series against the Devils already, and to claw some lost ground we now need to beat the red-hot Blaze in mid-week.

Fearing a £100 fine from the EIHL, or abuse from Cardiff fans, if I moan about the referees missing penalties on them (interference on Roy / Armstrong before their second goal anyone) or being overly harsh against us (insert your own Levi losing teeth / Lord getting pushed over comparison here) here’s a more stats based five things to give us some historical perspective:

• Two years ago – We led the league with 35 points, six ahead of the Devils on the same games played. Those six points had evaporated by early March.
• One year ago – Cardiff led the league with 35 points, four ahead of us although we had a game in hand. Those four points had evaporated by March.
• This year – Cardiff lead the league with 39 points, twelve points ahead, with us having four games in hand. IF we win those four games, we end up four points behind – and we’ve seen league leads of that many points evaporate in each of the last two years.
• So it’s not all over then – Maybe not, but the big concern for me is that Cardiff are much stronger this year, and hoovering up the points, whilst we are only slightly better. Cardiff are running at over three points per week-end (it’s actually 3.25 - a 0.813 points won percentage), which is well up on last year (0.700) and the previous year (0.630) – so we need them to start losing form quickly to grab back that run-rate. We’re running at 0.675 by the way – 6.75 points from every ten games, about 1.5 short of the Devils every four weeks – and with about twelve weeks to go we need an exact reversal of those stats to catch them.
• Little things with big consequences – When the coach see’s something he hasn’t seen in 25 years of coaching you know something really odd has happened – and that own-goal from Ben and Davey was certainly very odd. You can google and see lots of delayed penalty own-goals, but none where the n/m was still in position. I guess that’s why the n/m must be alert at all times – unfortunate, and maybe another sign that the hockey gods are against us this year.

As a final thought, welcome back Jace! One highlight from the last week was to see Jace back straight into the swing of things with two goals in two games. He will seemingly be another threat going forward again this year. However his line-matching is vital, and pairing him with Bjӧrklund highlighted the old historic defensive worries, especially during the lead up to the Devil’s third goal. Like the rest of the D he’s got lots of creativity, but he’s occasionally careless and was easily found out-of-position.

Cheers,

Tony.