Gigantic failures - Five things I learnt this weekend.

Well that wasn’t the weekend we had hoped for, nor the weekend we expected following good wins in Cardiff and Nottingham, but it was the weekend we got, and we can take learnings from it. Here’s five things I took away from the weekend.

1. No show on Saturday – I’m not talking about my decision to watch the Rival Sons at the Leadmill instead of going to the game, but reflecting on the opinions of the fans when I talked to them the following night. What happened to the team? There were visible frustrations on the ice, and lots of frustration in the fans - frustration with Thommo tinkering with the lines, and then sticking with it despite everyone else thinking it wasn’t working. I’m glad to have missed it but many seem to think that was the worst performance they’ve seen in a long time. Going behind heavily in the first period is never great watching, but we never responded and should have all just gone home after Riley grabbed their fifth, but as Tony and Simmsey keep telling us – we’re just fans who know nothing.
2. Better on Sunday – We were playing like demons at the start of Sunday, back to the forward lines that everyone recognised, and getting early pressure on their net - the crowd was as noisy as anything when Luke scored the first, and then confidence increased further after our second. If we could have reached the first interval before Levi’s hot-headed penalty, and if not for the lucky rebound for the Giants PP goal then we might have gone on to better things. Their first goal seemed to knock whatever confidence our players had, re-energised their supporters, and handed over the momentum. We grabbed it back briefly at 3.3 but killed ourselves off again with another individual mistake shortly afterwards. Not the worst game I’ve seen, and a point might have been a fair result, but after the frustrations of Saturday I think we will all reflect on it harshly.
3. Need for change – Performances like that breed discontent and calls for changes in the management and playing staff, but let’s take a breather and reflect on where we are in the league, what great hockey we’ve seen so far, and give them the benefit of the doubt. The team has been grabbing results with quite a few misfiring forwards, some leaky defence, and no options for resting players or Moose – we’ve been keeping ourselves in the hunt without playing at our best. We’ve no god given right to win the league, I just want to be competitive, and if Thommo could just bring in that spare soon that would be great.
4. Title favourites – For argument let’s say it’s just a two-horse race now – Cardiff have both a game in hand, and are a point ahead, but as there are still four head-to-head games between the Devils and Giants, then it’s clear that anything is still possible. Cardiff have been looking over their shoulder for months now, whilst Belfast have been on a great run of form, so on balance I’d probably favour Belfast. However, there’s plenty of time yet for another twist, or another horse to rejoin the race, and it’s worth noting that our friends at @AVFTB were writing themselves out of the running too back in November.
5. What do we need to do to win it? – We have 17 games left, almost one-third of the season still to go. One-third! OK, we have an eight point gap to Cardiff, and only one game in hand, but add that game-in-hand to also having three more Gardiner conference games than they do, then that could recover about half of that gap right there. We then have two games against Cardiff and one against Belfast, and if we win two of those we’re back in it. I think we have the easier run-in, and if those two start worrying about each other and sharing their head-to-heads we’re still going to have a big say in where the title goes. Maybe it’s wishful thinking but it’s still game on in Sheffield.

One final thing to leave you with is to ask if you saw Mike Smith’s antics at the NHL all-star weekend four line challenge? He’s the n/m for the Coyotes and maybe not the biggest household name, but he grabbed some headlines as he floated a puck from the far goalline into net target at the other end of the rink that wasn’t much wider than the puck itself! Now that’s great puck handling with a goalie paddle right there, but let’s hope the Steelers weren’t watching as otherwise our shoot-for-a-car will move back from the blue-line to at least the centre-line, and involve a goalie stick just to make sure there’s no winner.