This team is honestly crazy. We rode our luck a little bit at times tonight, and as Keefe said in his post game interview, we did survive a few grade A chances from Belfast, but you take that luck, especially when we suffered some bad luck from the officials tonight imo.
Roy is a superb hockey player, defensively responsible, lightning in transition with a shot to match and he’s as strong as an ox in the board battles. Also, to have two players scoring at a rate of a goal every other game is pivotal. If we can address our defensive issues for the remainder of the season then we could be ok.
Pleased to see Tetlow play so well to in his 1st home game back, he is a decent shutdown dman in our league and we’ve dearly missed his size and reach in this team.
A bad day certainly. Season not over yet. By my reckoning we will need to win 11 of the remaining 16 games to get to 8th. We may do it by winning 10. Based on the fact that the teams in 6th, 7th and 8th are all roughly picking up around 50 percent of the points available so far. If this carries on they will all be around 53-55 points. If we win 11 we will be on 55 points. Hopefully one of them will have a bad run.
We’re going off at a tangent to the actual reasons why we lost 9-3 today.
The ultra positive and ultra negative fans are the loudest on social media because they post the most, but there will be times when the club pushes the positives, as they rightly should, because that’s how social media works. It’s a tool for the club to use to try and grow the fanbase.
As much as some on here want to try and make out, what you see on social media isn’t a reflection of the entire fanbase.
It’s funny to think about it now, bearing in mind this forum has had a bad rep in the past, but the most balanced discussions and opinions generally occur on here I feel.
For me I’d keep:- Roy Nieminen Michaud Lunsjo Henbrant Neill
50/50 on Lemay, Ryczek, Despres. Caruso I’d imagine will retire after completing uni course.
Upgrade on goalies, Welsh, Anderson, Luciani, McGurty and Pare
That's give or take as I see it. The upgrades are bang on aside needing to see Luciani a bit longer. Looks a decent player, but he hasn't quite played with that same energy we saw in his first game.
Despres I think is back on an upward trend now for me. He still looks like he's the classiest Dman in the league at his best. He's also just starting to look fitter too. With that his speed appears to be getting better.
I remember Despres got sticked in the eye when we were in Coventry just before the new year and he was out for a few games. Maybe there were some after effects from that as it seemed like his overall play dropped off but he has been impressive lately
I’ve seen someone mention Ayr Scottish Eagles being re-incarnated, they didn’t mention a source though so that’s purely rumour. If we’re making speculative guesses though you would have thought that either Leeds or MK would be the most likely to join.
I personally think it would be great if another team joined. With the need to play as many games as we do for income, a bigger variety of teams helps keep things fresh and interesting
There’s got to be some sort of curse on Cardiff. The self belief and success we seem to have against them is remarkable.
In terms of how the game played out I thought it was a fairly even 1st, Cardiff bossed the 2nd though, we struggled with their net front traffic and the shots from the point massively. The 4 minute PK and goal before the period break turned the game though, that was really crucial.
We showed great character from there and we ramped it up in the 3rd. We hit the pipe work twice, but still didn’t lose motivation. Lovely goal from Roy and great to see Hazeldine get the winner.
Not a weekend sized crowd but my god those fans that were in attendance backed the team to the hilt. Fantastic match and result at the NIC!
Cardiff are flying at the minute, 12 league wins in a row, this is going to be a difficult match.
One thing I will say, if anybody is in contention to play, then let them. Even if they can only contribute a handful of minutes then it’s worth it to take some load off. We’re in the middle of a busy schedule and the games are counting down now
Disgraceful performance from the referees, clear trip on Michaud that led directly to their 4th and pretty much ended the game despite our late efforts. Then the lack of a call on Nichols for his cross check to the head of our player he was sat on the ice, it’s laughable. It didn’t take them long to get back to their old ways.
We can hold our heads high though, battled well and even though we were a line down compared to them it wasn’t a straight forward victory.
I felt Dundee were the better team in the 1st period, they threatened our net quite a lot and through some good goaltending and a bit of fortune we didn’t concede. Then we created a goal out of nothing, good workrate from Lunsjo to turn the puck over and Michaud laid it on a plate for Logan.
We never looked back from there and it was great to witness them play with a bit of confidence going forward. It does feel like we’ve turned a corner now, things are falling for us, hopefully we can keep the good results coming and climb up that table.
I don’t see how Michaud and Lemay have such drastically different +/- numbers when they’ve pretty much shared a line together all season
According to my records...
Michaud and Lemay's +/- when on ice together is -10 each.
Michaud without Lemay is +9. (+6 of which is games 31 and 32 (at Coventry and Fife) when on a line with 56/61.)
Lemay without Michaud is -11.
The 16/17/98 combination that has been playing together recently is a net -18 between them, scored 2 goals, conceded 8.
10 of Lemay's points have come on the PP.
As you’ve highlighted here, and in your previous post about Nieminen, we’ve got two lines that aren’t really going.
Surely it’s worth mixing it up and putting Nieminen-Roy-Lemay together? Imo they are our three best forwards, yet I can’t recall them having a spell together this season
Now that the EIHL stattos have cleaned up the game sheet from the Fife away game you can see the impact that Michaud has had of late. In the last 4 games he’s had 1 goal and 12 assists!! Him and Lunsjö have combined well and they’re giving us a bit of scoring depth which we’ve been desperate for. Hopefully they keep it up
Like others have said, it was a tense affair in the 3rd period, their 2nd goal was a poor one to concede and it gave them life. Thankfully the team dug in and held on.
Special mention for Lunjsö who has found his scoring form of late which has contributed massively to our improved performances. A lot of respect for Lemay as well. Stevenson is one of the toughest fighters in the league and he didn’t shy away, I did fear for him when he went down and got up holding his shoulder but thankfully he played on. It’s good to see some fire in them, it’s what you need to compete.
An interesting article from Joe. It’s been a tough season in terms of results and point tallies but I’d pick the following 5:
Hugo Roy - Works hard at both ends of the ice, carries the puck with speed, I feel he’s been our best player so far this season.
Otto Nieminen - Not blisteringly quick but skates well and his built up good chemistry with Roy. He’s a clever player and he has impressed me around the net, even if he’s probably not scored as many as he should. Doesn’t get pushed around in the corners or on the boards either.
Logan Neilson - Not picked up many points but as a 1st year pro I certainly feel we’ve got the makings of a decent offensive forward on our hands. Despite not scoring, his shot release looks quick, I’m praying he can pick up a few goals over the next few weeks. He’s got the height and the ability, as he gets older and more capable he could be a force.
Didrik Henbrant - Speed. You can never go wrong with it. He’s got it an abundance. For me he’s already excelled my expectations of what he was going to bring this season.
Mike Caruso - Some might disagree but I feel that Caruso has been vastly improved compared to last season. He’s still a bit too slow and probably picks up too many minors, but he is playing with a physical edge this season which has been good to see.
What an horrendous schedule we have coming up, just had a look basically 16 games in 28 days Sat, Sun and midweek for almost a whole month and up and down to Scotland only to play at 4pm on the next day. They are going to be knackered.
An update on the four players that are out of the lineup would be appreciated by the fans
Absolute chaos, 2-0 down within just over a minute played, but we’ve come out of the 1st period with the lead😂
Lovely finish from Lunsjö, a flukey one from Paré but a better goal for his second, found the open space in front and finished well. Putting that third line together has brought some success so far
I don't care about flukey, we deserve some luck
Absolutely, and Felix created his own luck, he got to the net and that’s all that matters