GDT: Giants 2:3 Panthers (EL, 5/12)

[pantherman66]

Belfast at home with a 13 imports and a healthy scratch, Panthers with just 10 imports, surely a foregone conclusion. Yes you're right an away win for the Panthers.

[Deleted]

Dec 5, 2015 22:10:14 GMT Mark Mac said:

Dec 5, 2015 21:54:16 GMT @jordannooooooo said:

I actually wasn't referring to yourself yesterday. Thanks for the mention though.

Of course. That's fascinating.

If you read back I was talking to the poster named ghost.

[Ghost]

Dec 5, 2015 22:24:06 GMT @jordannooooooo said:

Dec 5, 2015 22:10:14 GMT Mark Mac said:

Of course. That's fascinating.

If you read back I was talking to the poster named ghost.

I'll look forward to the Valentine's Day card Coke February as you seem entirely obsessed with me.

[Shaggy]

For pity's sake, will all three of you - jordannooooooo, Marc Mac and Ghost - all just give it a rest? At least in public... go get a room or something. Enough of the endless little digs and snipes... kindly either keep at least broadly to the topic under discussion and leave the personal stuff aside, or toddle off somewhere else.

Right... back to talking about tonight's game.

[Shorty]

Great game by Panthers but should probably have been two or three ahead at the end of the first. If all three officials take something forward out of the weekend it has to be a good thing. Take nothing and we have little hope.

Shame the thread has little substance and positivity.

[Shaggy]

Obviously a four-point weekend would have been preferable, but 2 points out of 4 in the Odyssey is not a bad result. We've not advanced over our closest rivals at all - in fact, it's entirely possible that Cardiff could leap-frog us tomorrow evening - but we're still in a very strong position.

It's way to early to say who has any advantage, given that we're less than half-way through the season, and league standings don't really mean much at all especially when teams have played different numbers of games... but after 20 games and a potential 40 points, we are sitting nicely with 30 points - a 75% return, which is not too shabby at all. In fact, we have - by a fairly respectable margin - dropped fewer points than any other team so far:-

Nottingham - 10
Belfast - 15
Cardiff - 15
Coventry - 17
Dundee - 17
Sheffield - 17
Fife - 19
Edinburgh - 21
Manchester - 26

It's not a huge cushion, I'll grant you... but it's a very handy breathing space.

And despite the fact that we played this weekend without the equivalent of an entire line of import forwards, we still played with 17 outskaters. That's some serious depth right there... and surely one of the reasons that we're doing quite well right now.

There's a very long way to go yet, but right now... we appear to be largely on course (hiccups like last Sunday, however, reminding us that complacency must be avoided at all costs!).

[panthertom93]

Sam Oakford playing as a forward for 4 shifts tonight won us that game.

In all seriousness though, great effort. Kolnik and Bohmbach are just brilliant. I do think when Kolnik is with Moran and Bohmbach is back with Schultz they'll get deadly. Hopefully the Xmas games will be the return for Schultzy

[Mark]

Would be nice to play with a full team. Let's hope we get back up to strength soon and then stay healthy, could make all the difference down the line.

[kievthegreat]

God Walser is a whiny so and so.

[pantherdman]

No club official should be allowed to talk about a ref like that. Should be fined IMO. Hope the elite league support the refs as they need all the help they can get.

Good result for panthers, always difficult to win in Belfast but the Giants are nothing special this year, but will be a main rival for the title.

[Pies]

I agree that the 5 on 3 call is soft but he doesn't mention the clear trip on Kolnik that we didn't get before they scored the night before. Or how Mosey was denied a clear penalty shot. One thing I respect about our club is that I can only think of one or two times we have had officials blame the ref (continental cup being the obvious one and we all knew that was a joke!) but it seems other clubs feel the need to bash the refs

[cooperphil156]

Dec 6, 2015 8:34:11 GMT Pies said:

I agree that the 5 on 3 call is soft but he doesn't mention the clear trip on Kolnik that we didn't get before they scored the night before. Or how Mosey was denied a clear penalty shot. One thing I respect about our club is that I can only think of one or two times we have had officials blame the ref (continental cup being the obvious one and we all knew that was a joke!) but it seems other clubs feel the need to bash the refs

Regarding the 5 on 3 there did seem to be a definite movement towards Clarke - perhaps not the brightest piece of defending. Whether it was a penalty will probably depend upon which side you are on. At the time I posted that Higgins should have been penalised and the commentary team were surprised he had got away with it.
Regarding the performance, we have that 9 Brit part of the roster, which does give continuity and no doubt helps team unity. One tends to feel a bit sorry for Oakford as he seems very often to the "spare Brit", but he played his part last night. Bohmbach is looking more and more to be a great signing.

[The Flying Shirt]

Dec 6, 2015 9:19:20 GMT cooperphil156 said:

Dec 6, 2015 8:34:11 GMT Pies said:

I agree that the 5 on 3 call is soft but he doesn't mention the clear trip on Kolnik that we didn't get before they scored the night before. Or how Mosey was denied a clear penalty shot. One thing I respect about our club is that I can only think of one or two times we have had officials blame the ref (continental cup being the obvious one and we all knew that was a joke!) but it seems other clubs feel the need to bash the refs

Regarding the 5 on 3 there did seem to be a definite movement towards Clarke - perhaps not the brightest piece of defending. Whether it was a penalty will probably depend upon which side you are on. At the time I posted that Higgins should have been penalised and the commentary team were surprised he had got away with it.
Regarding the performance, we have that 9 Brit part of the roster, which does give continuity and no doubt helps team unity. One tends to feel a bit sorry for Oakford as he seems very often to the "spare Brit", but he played his part last night. Bohmbach is looking more and more to be a great signing.

Bohmbach was really outstanding in both games and just gets better and better with each game. If he gives the puck up he works like hell to get it back and his movement off the puck is excellent too. We had the webcasts here for both games so we were not there but in my humble opinion that was the two worst reffing performances I have seen since the beginning of the conference system.

[iginla]

Good win that,we were lucky with the winner though.

Walser yes,he needs action as that's not the first time he's criticised refs.
But he did have a point because whilst I quite liked Hogarth in earlier games,this weekend he was shockingly bad for both teams.

That call against Beech to give us the 5 on 3 for the game winner was never a penalty in a million years.

2 points each was a fair reflection of the weekend though.

[Deleted]

5 on 3 calls are often game breakers. We had one against Steelers last Sunday on Mosey I think for high sticks that took a lot of our momentum.

[Shaggy]

Dec 6, 2015 4:44:09 GMT kievthegreat said:

God Walser is a whiny so and so.

Did the Belfast catering staff provide him with some cheese to go with his whine...?

[titch]

Brilliant win for the Panthers, you can see how much it means to each player to win as a team, it's beautiful. Saying that, we should have easily been 2 or 3 up in the first period, some very easy tap-in's went wide of the goal, no idea how! One thing I love about this club is that Corey and the team are full of class, always gives praise to the other team regardless if we win or lose, never makes excuses and just gets the fudge on with it. Shame other teams can't follow the great example our team give out. #happydays

[Lawman]

I agree with titch about Corey full of praise for other teams win or loose

[dp]

Dec 6, 2015 15:54:34 GMT Lawman said:

I agree with titch about Corey full of praise for other teams win or loose

I've always thought this. It was really noticeable in the grand slam season that Corey never made any excuses. He slipped into it a bit the last couple of seasons - and I'm not sure if it was the cause or the result of our poorer form.

I always think that psychologically if you start to blame others then you give the players a get out. If the results, win or lose, are only ever your own doing, then the players know they're responsible and accountable. It's a subtle thing but I think makes a massive difference.

[mase721]

Giants very lucky to get anything out of this weekend Panthers totally out played us this weekend. Kris Beech is the biggest waste of an import slot he may as well not be on the ice as he either turns the puck over or gives away a stupid penalty. Walser was out coached this weekend and the fact he is now starting to the refs and claiming the team played well is extremely worrying overall not impressed with this weekend at all and worried that the title is already slipping away.

[cjmatt42]

All in all a half decent weekend, no points lost to Giants, no points dropped compared to Steelers and 1 point lost to Braehead and Cardiff. Given 2 games in the Odyssey not a bad return especially given the team available. It shows the depth in the current squad to be able to compete so well in Belfast despite effectively missing a line of McMillan, Moran and Schultz.

Interesting that Walser has decided to remember one of the few decisions to go against Giants all weekend for their defeat. Wonder if his post match on Friday commented on how fortunate they were to get away with an obvious trip on Kolnik to then send the puck full length and score on us or how the officials failed to give the most blatant penalty shot to Mosey on Saturday!

Could do with at least McMillan back this weekend if not another body brought in on a short term deal also to ice a more or less full roster. With Ollie also missing this weekend it's asking a lot to go and repeat Devils points return if we are running a roster 4 bodies short. We looked pretty lightweight at centre most of the weekend with Moran out so getting McMillan back to centre a line would be massive.

[BigLad]

People full of praise for the Devils webcast last week (particularly the commentary). Opposite (with the commentary) for this one?

How much whining was going on?! Give it a break boys.

[shmyrohdear]

Only just watched the highlights from the weekend but my god how much do their commentary team whine? As for Walser i feel he should be put in his place regarding the comments made against officials, sets a bad example for his own team. The too many men call was spot on the Beech call is a fifty fifty play.

[Yotes]

The Beech call is never a penalty, absolute shocker. Considering they were already down a man he has to be real sure to call that. Walser probably should get some DOPS action for speaking out of school, but I can see where the frustration comes from, it pretty much teed up the GWG for us.

Their commentary team were quite complimentary about us I thought.

[The Flying Shirt]

Dec 7, 2015 18:41:54 GMT Yotes said:

The Beech call is never a penalty, absolute shocker. Considering they were already down a man he has to be real sure to call that. Walser probably should get some DOPS action for speaking out of school, but I can see where the frustration comes from, it pretty much teed up the GWG for us.

Their commentary team were quite complimentary about us I thought.

Yes they were great I have to say.