GAME THREAD: Steelers v Stars: Saturday 28th March

[paul johnston]

Ripping this team apart is not the answer? That's an interesting opinion. Lack of goals, poor in the D zone, stale, ineffective pp, lack of character and leadership for me suggests big changes needed. Need some fresh ideas behind the bench too. Would a different coach with the same players have done better? Possibly.
First action (after coaching team is set in stone) is looking at the plans for the Brit corps.

[Bryan]

Ripping this team apart is not the answer? That's an interesting opinion. Lack of goals, poor in the D zone, stale, ineffective pp, lack of character and leadership for me suggests big changes needed. Need some fresh ideas behind the bench too. Would a different coach with the same players have done better? Possibly.
First action (after coaching team is set in stone) is looking at the plans for the Brit corps.

Certainly the team needs radical overhaul but asking Fox to do it does not seem to me to be the answer, as I said.

[paul johnston]

Ripping this team apart is not the answer? That's an interesting opinion. Lack of goals, poor in the D zone, stale, ineffective pp, lack of character and leadership for me suggests big changes needed. Need some fresh ideas behind the bench too. Would a different coach with the same players have done better? Possibly.
First action (after coaching team is set in stone) is looking at the plans for the Brit corps.

Certainly the team needs radical overhaul but asking Fox to do it does not seem to me to be the answer, as I said.

Agree, I wouldn't ask Fox to do it either

[Rendo]

I'd like to know how with the last few games remaining can Heard go out and throw bombs like that? Where has that fight been the rest if the season?

[Brian]

There has been a lack of aggression from our defence for some time now. Teams should not be free to come over the blue line and play pretty -pretty hockey without being challenged hard. They should also not be allowed to have free reign and stand players in front of our goalie as they do. You won't see that in Belfast, Cardiff , Nottingham or Manchester.
Foxy keeps mentioning players who are not “ Buying in “, to our system . You have to ask yourself who these players are. Fair play to Heard but it's been sometime coming and fighting at the benches does not help us prevent goals. In fact it put us on a powerkill , fairly or not..
Who are the players who are taking it easy ?

[Jayboy]

I am thinking it may be easier to name the players who are not....

Jayboy

[Doom]

I was having a look at a few stats this morning which I found interesting.

We've only got two players scoring at 20 goal per season pace, which I thought was quite poor. I then looked at Belfast and they're the same, so probably not a big issue.

Overall we're not that far behind Belfast in terms of goals scored, but we are conceding quite a lot more, so I'd suggest the issues are probably more defensive. I also think Belfast have an ability to turn those tight games into 1 goal victories, a talent we probably lack.

I was also interested looking at the +/- stats for the season. At the top end:

Diffley +30
Dougherty +23
Dowd +22
Tait +22
Jasper +19

Balmas is currently only +9. I've picked him out because he is putting up fantastic numbers, but clearly also on the ice a lot when we concede.

At the bottom end of the regular players:

Ritchie -4
Kelly -1
Shudra -1
Pu +1
Huttula +3
Tansey +4

I'm not too concerned with Kelly and Shudra, but those Ritchie numbers are brutal. He may have scored quite a few goals, but clearly he's not interested in his work at the other end of the ice.

Also surprised and disappointed with the numbers for Tansey and Huttula, because both are players I rate and wanted to see back. Possibly there is a bit of an excuse for both though, because Tansey has played forward on 4th line at times and Huttula has been paired on the 3rd defensive line with Kelly.

My mate looked at the +/- stats against the top 3 teams. Dowd was top, but Cormier and Ritchie had very poor numbers.

Also have to say we've not had the numbers from Greenfield this season. He's currently at 91.74%, which is well down on what I would have expected.

Whistle is 93.32% and Bowns 92.94%. DeRidder is actually top with 93.91%....worth a punt?

Regards

Doom

[tim123]

First action (after coaching team is set in stone) is looking at the plans for the Brit corps.

I think Fox and the Sheffield organisation as a whole is doing a lot to help this recently (Kudos to Tony Smith and coaching teams). Steele, Lynch, IBN and Watson have all played EIHL minutes this year - I'm excited to see that development route from youth to pro level

Sent from my Pixel 7a using Tapatalk

[Nathan]

Didn't attend last night's game. Couldn't really be bothered tbh.

The problems stated above though have been an issue for a while and I'm afraid it's down to the coach and his no2.

That entire D core needs a rebuild imo. Only Cormier would remain for me.

[KCHC]

I was having a look at a few stats this morning which I found interesting.

We've only got two players scoring at 20 goal per season pace, which I thought was quite poor. I then looked at Belfast and they're the same, so probably not a big issue.

Overall we're not that far behind Belfast in terms of goals scored, but we are conceding quite a lot more, so I'd suggest the issues are probably more defensive. I also think Belfast have an ability to turn those tight games into 1 goal victories, a talent we probably lack.

I was also interested looking at the +/- stats for the season. At the top end:

Diffley +30
Dougherty +23
Dowd +22
Tait +22
Jasper +19

Balmas is currently only +9. I've picked him out because he is putting up fantastic numbers, but clearly also on the ice a lot when we concede.

At the bottom end of the regular players:

Ritchie -4
Kelly -1
Shudra -1
Pu +1
Huttula +3
Tansey +4

I'm not too concerned with Kelly and Shudra, but those Ritchie numbers are brutal. He may have scored quite a few goals, but clearly he's not interested in his work at the other end of the ice.

Also surprised and disappointed with the numbers for Tansey and Huttula, because both are players I rate and wanted to see back. Possibly there is a bit of an excuse for both though, because Tansey has played forward on 4th line at times and Huttula has been paired on the 3rd defensive line with Kelly.

My mate looked at the +/- stats against the top 3 teams. Dowd was top, but Cormier and Ritchie had very poor numbers.

Also have to say we've not had the numbers from Greenfield this season. He's currently at 91.74%, which is well down on what I would have expected.

Whistle is 93.32% and Bowns 92.94%. DeRidder is actually top with 93.91%....worth a punt?

Regards

Doom

I was looking at these during the period breaks last night. Ritchie is an interesting one - almost a point per game so clearly producing with the puck, but a grim +/- as you say.