Nottingham Panthers v Steelers Sat 3rd Apr

[SteelerBlade]

Well here it is, our first fixture since the Challenge Cup final win on 8th March 2020, 390 days ago. Face off 7pm.

Steelers come into this with a fully fit roster (for once) to choose from. Fox seems to have gone for a younger bunch this series to help with that.

Nottingham are without Brett Perlini who is still competing in the AlpsHL playoffs with HC Pusteral Wölfe.

However they do come off a strong offensive performance against Coventry so may be a bit sharper with a little game time to work on special teams.

The strange anomaly with the Elite Series is you can lose all 12 regular season games but 4 wins out of the last 6 playoff games sees you victorious, so there’s a bit of room for experimentation so will be interesting to see how teams use it.

Goes without saying these early games may be interesting with the varying levels of fitness across the rosters.

[Doom]

Welcome back fixture thread, it has been far too long.

I've purchased all 12 Steelers games and am really looking forward to this. I realise at best it will be Diet EIHL, but it will be great to have some hockey to talk about with my mates.

With the way this is structured wins aren't essential at this stage, but I want to see us competitive and hopefully some of the new guys make a real good impression.

Hopefully with Myers in the team we'll be better at faceoffs.

Regards

Doom

[Brian]

Elite site says we have 6 injuries and Fox is to play.
But then it may have been April 1st....

[Brian]

Sorry , it was and is on Steelers site. Got to be a Simmsy wind up.

[SteelerBlade]

Sorry , it was and is on Steelers site. Got to be a Simmsy wind up.

Had to admit, after last season the mass injury part was very believable!! Haha

[SteelerBlade]

Officials:

Referees:
Liam Sewell & Andy Dalton

Linesmen:
Danny Beresford & James Ions

[SteelerBlade]

Steelers line-up as follows:

Olden - Connolly - Dowd
Kirk - Mikyska - Eberle
Graham - Myers - J. Phillips
Waller - Hewitt

Saxrud-Danielsen - Beaudry
Schulze - D. Phillips
Hrabal - S. Jones
A. Jones

Muse
Churchfield

Steelers elect not to ice 4 lines in favour of a 7th D. Musil, Pákozdi & Warburton the scratches.

[SteelerBlade]

Panthers without Perlini who’s in the AlpsHL still, as well as Kerlin & Chamberlain the scratches.

[paul johnston]

Looking forward to the game immensely. Interesting forward lines. Second line has two left shot wingers, third has two right shot. Also having 11 F and 7 D. Never like the mixing and matching of centremen so will see how these two issues pan out. Looking forward to checking out the new guys, especially the Norwegians. I hope Waller gets some decent ice time. I rate his potential highly.

[paul johnston]

Just realised I forgot to mention Liam Kirk. How could I!? Will be great to see him in action and see his improvements too!