Cardiff Devils v Belfast Giants - Sun 6pm - Chat/Updates

[ASHIPP]

Last night's match was a shocker, to be honest. G had already acknowledged that the team's weakness was 'going to sleep' when they are in the lead (as illustrated against Nottingham and 2 other matches) - I'm afraid EXACTLY that happened last night. The frustrating thing is that the Devils clearly have the potential to win against sides like Nottingham, Belfast and Coventry but it's just not happening right now.
Granted that bad circumstances affected their pre-season preparation. But they still don't appear (to me anyway) to have gelled properly yet. Injury has caused problems for G as he has still had to mess around with the 1st and 3rd line ups. This lack of line consistency has not helped performance. I'm afraid to say it but I will - I do feel that too much store has been invested in the hope of players like Smith and Latullippe performing well as in previous seasons. I see no evidence of that at all yet. Latullippe played a shocker last night and, let's face it, Smith (although he can't help it) has spent a lot of time resting knocks and not playing. The fact that he actually admitted in an early interview that he had not hit the ice in 5 months since leaving Italy suggests a bit of a blaise attitude to fitness considering the British guys were training constantly during the Summer.
The potential is so there for the Devils if they can get it together. They need to win these home games because picking up away wins is always difficult when travelling.
I just got the feeling that some of the guys, apart from being exhausted last night, looked to be carrying niggling aches/injuries. The Vother, for instance, kept lifting his left knee and stretching it. And both the hits on G and Stoney were shocking and totally uneccessary -let's hope that they recover quickly.
Some excellent individual performances last night of ability and passion - Max, Miller, Ben, Towey, Tylor, Ritchie and actually Stevie who impressed me during the shoot-out.
The others simply played a lack-lustre, complacent ineffective game. Unfortunately, those guys made it twice as hard to play as a TEAM which simply is what they need to do to get results.

 

[Gazza272]

I'm suprised people are criticising Jay last night, some of his passes are sublime from behind the net, at least 5 times last night he put the puck on a plate for someone to put it away, but no one was in the right place at the right time.


I also felt last ngiht showed how much we are missing Smithy, the game was crying out for some one to tie up the slow Giants D with a quick change of movement and a cutting pass, Max tried a few times but with all due respect to his line mates, they arent yet ready to read some of his plays.


I still dont think we played badly last night, it's stewing me how different last night could have been with out the clutch and grab suffocating us, there were a lot of frustrated devils players the longer the game went on.

 

[DevilDom]

I'm suprised people are criticising Jay last night, some of his passes are sublime from behind the net, at least 5 times last night he put the puck on a plate for someone to put it away, but no one was in the right place at the right time.


I also felt last ngiht showed how much we are missing Smithy, the game was crying out for some one to tie up the slow Giants D with a quick change of movement and a cutting pass, Max tried a few times but with all due respect to his line mates, they arent yet ready to read some of his plays.


I still dont think we played badly last night, it's stewing me how different last night could have been with out the clutch and grab suffocating us, there were a lot of frustrated devils players the longer the game went on.

Do you think the lack of any potential retribution allowed the Giants to play a niggling, frustrating game? I certainly think it had an impact, although the ref should have called a lot more penalties against them.

 

[bubbles]

Bit controversial, but how many shut outs does anyone think the Devils will have in league games?

Ok I'll make it easier, how many games this season will we only let in 1 goal.

No I'll make it even easier, how many games this season will we only let in 2 goals.

Not easy enough I'll then make it even easier, how many games this season will we only let in 3 goals.

How can the defence sort it's self out? What needs to be done?

 

[Gazza272]

[qu
Do you think the lack of any potential retribution allowed the Giants to play a niggling, frustrating game? I certainly think it had an impact, although the ref should have called a lot more penalties against them.

No i dont believe so, the game was there for the taking and we were better than the Giants imo, i think our players knew that and knew their D was suspect, only problem is the Giants D was so suspect the only thing they could do was clutch and grab, thats the only frustrating thing to come out of this.


For me the whole retrebution thing isnt a proble, the problem was taking the fight in the Odyssey the previous night, and whoever ordered that or decided to do that weather it was an instruction from G or Vother's own desicion made a massive mistake. It was Mcmorrows night the second the gloves come off, appart from knocking him out the Odessey was always going to explode, and Mcmorrow landing a good punch on Voth only made things worse.


Now there is a cloud hanging over Voth, he obviously doesnt need to fight Mcmorrow as he is a far better player than him, proved by the fact that Mcmorrow when on the ice was about as useful as a chocolate fire guard, but theres a pressure on Voth now imo from certain sections of the fan base to 'sort him out' or to take revenge on Mcmorrow for what happened, had we not taken the fight in the O then Mcmorrow would have been frustrated, the GIants would have been frustrated and imo we could have controlled the tempo of the game on Saturday night, and taken that lead into last night.



Was it good enforcing by Mcmorrow? yes in a way, i would say it's more of a bad desicion on the part of our team over the weekend. Overall though for me Voth tried to score the winning goal last ngiht, which is fine by me, and had he taken his first period chance and gone for finesse rather than Power i think we would have been in the asendency.

 

[august04]

I'm suprised people are criticising Jay last night, some of his passes are sublime from behind the net, at least 5 times last night he put the puck on a plate for someone to put it away, but no one was in the right place at the right time.


I also felt last ngiht showed how much we are missing Smithy, the game was crying out for some one to tie up the slow Giants D with a quick change of movement and a cutting pass, Max tried a few times but with all due respect to his line mates, they arent yet ready to read some of his plays.


I still dont think we played badly last night, it's stewing me how different last night could have been with out the clutch and grab suffocating us, there were a lot of frustrated devils players the longer the game went on.

Do you think the lack of any potential retribution allowed the Giants to play a niggling, frustrating game? I certainly think it had an impact, although the ref should have called a lot more penalties against them.

Spot on. If the Devils had reacted to clutch and grab tactics, by throwing a few punches early on (as they normally would have in my view), the Giants may not have continued this policy throughout the game. If nothing else, it might have highlighted what was going on to the ref (whether he would have done anything about it is another matter!). Too many were looking over their shoulders last night I'm afraid and I maintain that we lost the physical battle. I don't think he'll last much longer over here but McMorrow contributed greatly to their 4 point weekend.

 

[Soundwave1]

Excellent post gazza. Although I'd just add that I'm a little surprised that we lost two players to checks to the head last night and nobody from our team even had a word. I think it was Faubert who hit Stone and there isn't really an excuse for not taking him on.

Knight forgot the code when he carried on punching Mishel on the floor which was wrong, but did exactly the right thing in going after him.

If teams come in to our rink and think they can get away with things like that we'll struggle at home. I'm sure if G hadn't been the one hit he would have been straight into McMorrow.

 

[DevilDom]

Gazza - I agree with your point on the fight the night before. Voth should have refused that one and saved it for Tent. However, having done it - he must have known that Mcmorrow would be looking for it again and been ready to step up again. Even if he had lost it would have fired the rest of the team up and got mcmorrow off the ice as well - ok its a trade down, but at least the rest of the giants players would have thought twice about taking liberties. Miller can fight if needed and I also think Hartwick should step up more.

IMO - it did allow the giants to win the physical battle which is something I'm not used to seeing from a Devils side.

 

[osh]

Ok , Voth lost the fight on Saturday in Belfast. The best way for him to have replied to that ( without fighting ) would have been to score last night. How close did he come ? Well, he had a great chance in the first period, but missed and he wasn't a goal scoring threat thereafter. Yes he tried hard as I would expect,but as far as I'm concerned we do not have the final killer touch and that will cost us dearly. I thought our penalty taking ( apart from Max's goal ) was sadly inept. Belfast's weren't much better, but for pro players not to even manage a shot when taking a penalty is dire indeed.

 

[no74]

I'm not convinced Voth fighting McMorrow would have been the way forward. All he had to do was play his usual in your face game and watch McMorrow go. Would anyone think any less of Voth if he turtled for McMorrow? I wouldn't. McMorrow can sit in the bin and watch while Voth keeps finishing his checks. That's got to be best case scenario hasn't it?

I do agree that if McMorrow wasn't called for his hit on G, someone should have had a go but it was called and shouldn't have put us off our game at all...we'll forgive G though eh? Voth did seem quiet last night but it's early days and I've got faith in him. 'Sherrif' Badge will have his head down trying to play hockey one night and will get what's coming. We've seen big hits from him on Payette and the likes. It'll come.

 

[TheStub]

I'll start this with the "I wasn't there" disclaimer.

I agree with no74. I would far rather see Voth on the ice than in the bin (although I would bet that Voth would get a fighting major even if the gloves stayed on, and he turtled on the ice). It would have been better to play our game, and frustrate the Giants.

I'm not sure what is up with this team. I have rewatched games, and they never look as bad on the video as they seemed on the ice.

Someone mentioned the finishing touch, and that it just it. grab a copy of some of the games off Sky, and the work ethic and position from the "M" line is fantastic - they often outwork the opposition D (all our lines seem to) but there is never that final pass. Or, to my mind there is often a pass to far. We try to thread the needle, and give an easy clear - or just plain overplay it, and give away a turn over.

Sometimes you need to shoot, and hope you find a hole or get the rebound. Lift the puck, try and get it in the corners and make the goalie work. Even the ugly ones count.

Although, that said we scored 6 goals this weekend. In previous seasons that would have been more than enough to secure the points over the weekend. The problem is, we conceded 8. Not sure where the weak link is, but we are leaky at the back. For me, Lyle has looked good every time I've seen him. 1 on 1 I haven't seen many better in our league (he has a good level of aggression, and actually plays the puck rather than just blocking a shot).

Perhaps we just have a too offensively minded D this season. Certainly, we seem to concede when looking for that next goal. Linked to our bad passing, the D are too far forward to get back. From the Giants live feed on the weekend, on at least one of the goals our positional play was awful.

 

[Finny]

We have one person claiming we should be staying out of the box and not giving away stupid penalties - then a couple of posts later someone claiming we should have started throwing punches when we were being held back.

I'm not disagreeing with either of you - yet you both can't be right.

Whilst I was disappointed in the loss and disappointed in a couple of players performance, I was far more disgusted with the standard of refereeing we were forced to endure last night. Why we had to stop playing Zero Tolerance I don't know - if that was being called last night we would have put double figures past Belfast.
Instead we had to endure a very negative Giants performance which slowly made the game more and more boring.
Now I can see why the crowds in the Odyssey are getting lower and lower.

 

[august04]

We have one person claiming we should be staying out of the box and not giving away stupid penalties - then a couple of posts later someone claiming we should have started throwing punches when we were being held back.

I'm not disagreeing with either of you - yet you both can't be right.

Whilst I was disappointed in the loss and disappointed in a couple of players performance, I was far more disgusted with the standard of refereeing we were forced to endure last night. Why we had to stop playing Zero Tolerance I don't know - if that was being called last night we would have put double figures past Belfast.
Instead we had to endure a very negative Giants performance which slowly made the game more and more boring.
Now I can see why the crowds in the Odyssey are getting lower and lower.

Yes but are you surprised at the standard of refereeing? I'm not, nor should you be as we have to endure it week in, week out. Players must adapt to what the referee is (or isn't) calling on the night. He wasn't calling the clutching and grabbing, so the players should have done something about it early doors. That might have sent a message to the opposition that if you're going to try that, you'll get punished physically. A few penalties taken sending that message would have been fine in my book (and as I've posted earlier, it might just have highlighted the referee as to what was going on). That said, I do believe McMorrow influenced that lack of a physical reaction from the Devils. I think they knew they'd have to answer to him and didn't fancy it. That's his job and he did it well over the weekend. Adams has stated so many times both this season and last, that we're going to dominate physically in our home building. That didn't happen yesterday.

 

[bubbles]

I've been looking at the stats from the previous 4 seasons. Statobtained from IH-Update.

------------AVG Scored-------Avg Against------Posistion------Pemalty Mins
2005-2007------2.6-------------2.9---------------5-------------23.51
2006-2007------3.2-------------2.8---------------3-------------20.88
2007-2008------3.0-------------3.2---------------6-------------18.04
2008-2009------3.2-------------2.6---------------5-------------25.12
2009-2010------3.4-------------3.8---------------5-------------31.75

I think the stats say a lot.

Period--------------------------1---------2-----------3------Total

Total PIMs--------------------110------73-------198----- 381
Average PIMs / Game-------9.17-----6.08------16.5----31.75
% of Total--------------------28%-----19%------51%-------

No wonder we keep losing games in the third Period. 51% of our penalty mins in the 3rd. I've looked at all the other teams and believe me when I say weare going to be lucky not to finish any better than 2nd from bottom.

We need to sort penalty mins and the defence out. Don't blame refs for the above. Our net minder has the worst stats 87.5%. Now I am not witch hunting Steve, but if the defence goes missing he's always going to have low stats. 2 on 1 will always beat him, and let's be honest this is happening to often. Too many times last night there was nobody patroling. Lets get basics right, stay on the ice, stop them scoring, and with our fire power 3.4 per game we'll start winning.

 

[Chris]

Didn't like half those 3rd period penalties come from the Hull game?

Chris.

 

[TheStub]

Who would we loose from the D? Is this an argument to get Symonds back then? Have a supporting stay at home D, without having to get another import?

Let's be honest, Romfo is the only guy I can see us replacing - but he has looked quite good to me.

Is is more a question of whole team defence?

 

[Gingers Husband]

Let's be honest, Romfo is the only guy I can see us replacing - but he has looked quite good to me.

For me, Romfo does some great work in the corners and behind the net but makes some suicidal passes in front of it. He could use a bit more composure when clearing our zone and cut down the needless penalties. Everyone takes them but some of Scotts leave me a bit bewildered,even allowing for refereeing vagaries. That said, last nights game was ours, as was the Panthers game the other week. If we keep having one nightmare period in three the only way is down I'm afraid.

 

[nmase20]

I wouldn't say make an changes, just work on stopping the errors that are occuring, because thats where half the goals seem to be coming from if not more. The second goal last night was a big example of this.

 

[bubbles]

Didn't like half those 3rd period penalties come from the Hull game?

Chris.

A few came against Hull, which makes it worse. We had players banned from big games, all because we couldn't keep our discipline against a lower side, and we were winning.

We have to sort 1. Discipline. 2. The whole defence. I think to many people blame Romfo. Should we have a D man, I don't know, but what is clear our defence the way it is set up at the moment isn't working. My worry is, if we lose another handful of games we can kiss the league goodbye.

 

[Cookies_naughtyboy]

Didn't like half those 3rd period penalties come from the Hull game?

Chris.

A few came against Hull, which makes it worse. We had players banned from big games, all because we couldn't keep our discipline against a lower side, and we were winning.

We have to sort 1. Discipline. 2. The whole defence. I think to many people blame Romfo. Should we have a D man, I don't know, but what is clear our defence the way it is set up at the moment isn't working. My worry is, if we lose another handful of games we can kiss the league goodbye.

in all fairness, Knight Jumps Michel, Romfo gets a match penalty for trying to Pull knight off him and not fighting which is why he was banned, Hartwick was banned for basically pushing over a Hull player who tried to pull him away, Birbraer got off lightly IMO
we were down all those players for 1 game which we Won V Steelers with that great performance,

But we are taking so many penalties its getting a problem, it is not all down to our players though, look at the Stoney penalty last night that was a joke call, but still we need to cut down big time on penalties, we look good on our PP but other teams like Blaze and Panthers have 2 very good PP uinits and look dangerous on most of there PP