GAME THREAD. Steelers v Blaze. Wed 27th Oct

[Nathan]

Dumb penalties from Brust and Connelly didn't help the cause.

De Luca miss firing again.

Armstrong disappeared a bit also.

Need big players to step up in these sort of games.

[SteelerBlade]

Just done a bit of analysis. You always want to hit around 100% combined PP & PK % to have good special teams performance.

Steelers = 69%
Coventry = 131%

Other stat indications of underlying reasons for our L:

- Only 49% of shots were on net, wasteful.
- 34% of shots in slot area compared to 74% Cov
- 9% of shots on net converted, half of Cov %
- Brust .826 SV% vs Motte .909 SV%
- 48% of our shots taken from above the circles.
- Coventry won 60% FOs in our D zone.

[paul johnston]

It's pretty damming stats there.
I thought we were better built to deal with teams upping the physicality against us but now I'm not certain and I think this is quite important.
We struggled with Fife playing basic solid defensive structure with physicality until the late major penalty . The Dundee game was similar.

[smbmetal]

It's pretty damming stats there.
I thought we were better built to deal with teams upping the physicality against us but now I'm not certain and I think this is quite important.
We struggled with Fife playing basic solid defensive structure with physicality until the late major penalty . The Dundee game was similar.

With the likes of Ellerby, D Phillips & Jones I thought the same. It won’t take other teams long to work out upping the physicality against us creates positive results.

[JoeySlats#13]

Disappointing result obviously, however, I thought we played well enough to take the 2 points, we heavily outshot and out chanced them and thought our pace of play was what we expect. Thought Vallerand, Dowd, DeLuca stood out in the forward group, Sointu, Jono and Latal were also skating well and making things happen. Was dissapointed with Big John but once Connolly left the game (who drew some penalties from the Blaze but also gave away a shocker behind their net, which led to their go ahead goal) he and Hodgman (who was looking creative but seemed to pass up a lot of opportunities to shoot it) were sharing the centreman duties so looked gassed by the end of the game.

The chemistry between Dowd and Vallerand is a definite positive they were looking like scoring every shift and the PP goal which included Schulze was a thing of beauty.!!

We were noticeably weaker on faceoffs in all zones and it seemed that we didn't win a PK or PP draw which Oleksuk was giving us, I'm sure we will improve on this as we get used to not having a faceoff specialist but I thought it was very noticeable that we weren't winning the important ones.

Defensively I thought Ellerby was imposing and had a solid game until he left after taking a bad elbow to the eye. Schulze was skating extremely well and seemed to be creating a lot for us with his speed in transition. Todd is poised on the puck and he and ASD seemed to have a solid game. Davey was physical at times and Jones seemed to grow into the game well and was jumping into the play nicely as we chased the game, which was good to see. Mosey looked good too, his skating stood out and had a night mixed between playing forward and defense.

With regards to Brust a lot of people have an opinion on him but I thought he kept us in it, he had a number of 2 on 1's and breakaways to deal with, which we seem to give up way too often. The 2 penalties were not great, however, they usually go unnoticed if the PK is at anywhere near a decent %.

I think it was a frustrating game and we had the chances in the first period to be out ahead and when we didn't take those, our daft penalties and PK were the deciding factor in the end.

[Steeler Stats]

A very good post I totally agree

[smbmetal]

Having watched the highlights I still don’t see the spear penalty. It was a tap.

We also look frightened when the physical play is upped by the opposition. Only our captain seems to be able to stick up for himself.

[SteelerBlade]

Having watched the highlights I still don’t see the spear penalty. It was a tap.

Doesn’t even need to make contact in the 21/22 IIHF rules to be a penalty, the minimum you can receive by making any kind of contact with that particular motion is a 5 minute major penalty and game misconduct.

He didn’t “recklessly endanger” Connolly so survived the match penalty and automatic 1 game suspension that comes with that.