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I've been to the four home games, but not seen the away games, so N=4 here, hardly a representative sample, but wondered if others had any thoughts on general trends they'd noticed over the games?
For me I'd say on the positive side:
We're a feisty bunch. Hendrikx in particular likes a scrap, but Hudson, Clarkson, Mychan all seem willing to pile in. Keefe and particularly Morency (he is going to be a popular player this at rinks year) were put in their place. So we won't get bullied.
Powerplay is improved - it didn't work so much on Sunday, but in general I think PP has got better from last season. We scored more PP goals against Belfast than we did under all of Whistle's reign (I'm not sure if that's actually true, but it seemed like it). I think this is an area we will continue to improve in, so good to see some early signs.
High tempo play - the play has generally been quicker than last season, although on Sunday they looked tired, so maybe there is a price to pay for this.
Morissette reborn - one of the interesting things to see this season will be how the returning players perform. How many of them were adversely affected by last year's shenanigans? Morissette looks like a different player. It'll be interesting to see if there is a similar improvement with Myers.
Some negative things (though not too negative and it's all early days yet):
Poor shot-goal conversion - partly this is the nature of being the home team, the opposition will defend and then hit on the break, but particularly over the weekend we had lots of shots, but very few of them went in. On Sunday we were taking wide shots which Doyle would save all night long.
The mid-game crumble - related to the above, we have long periods of domination, but don't get enough goals. Then usually in period 2, they'll score one and then quickly score 1 or 2 more. We go from leading to being behind. This happened a lot last season, and it's one aspect we have to tighten up on. Just because one goes in, don't panic and make it 2 or 3.
Easy break-aways - we've given the puck away with sloppy passes too many times for my liking. We dominate a game, have loads of shots, get a goal in front, then all this is undone by one slack pass and they go up the other end and score.
There's nothing that can't be improved in those negatives. I like the look of the squad, the coaching team have shown they are capable of switching things around and our team probably more than any other is still in the process of getting to know each other. So I think it'll improve a lot over the next few games (and it's already pretty good).
Just some thoughts. Anyone else noticed any trends, good or bad?
For me I'd say on the positive side:
We're a feisty bunch. Hendrikx in particular likes a scrap, but Hudson, Clarkson, Mychan all seem willing to pile in. Keefe and particularly Morency (he is going to be a popular player this at rinks year) were put in their place. So we won't get bullied.
Powerplay is improved - it didn't work so much on Sunday, but in general I think PP has got better from last season. We scored more PP goals against Belfast than we did under all of Whistle's reign (I'm not sure if that's actually true, but it seemed like it). I think this is an area we will continue to improve in, so good to see some early signs.
High tempo play - the play has generally been quicker than last season, although on Sunday they looked tired, so maybe there is a price to pay for this.
Morissette reborn - one of the interesting things to see this season will be how the returning players perform. How many of them were adversely affected by last year's shenanigans? Morissette looks like a different player. It'll be interesting to see if there is a similar improvement with Myers.
Some negative things (though not too negative and it's all early days yet):
Poor shot-goal conversion - partly this is the nature of being the home team, the opposition will defend and then hit on the break, but particularly over the weekend we had lots of shots, but very few of them went in. On Sunday we were taking wide shots which Doyle would save all night long.
The mid-game crumble - related to the above, we have long periods of domination, but don't get enough goals. Then usually in period 2, they'll score one and then quickly score 1 or 2 more. We go from leading to being behind. This happened a lot last season, and it's one aspect we have to tighten up on. Just because one goes in, don't panic and make it 2 or 3.
Easy break-aways - we've given the puck away with sloppy passes too many times for my liking. We dominate a game, have loads of shots, get a goal in front, then all this is undone by one slack pass and they go up the other end and score.
There's nothing that can't be improved in those negatives. I like the look of the squad, the coaching team have shown they are capable of switching things around and our team probably more than any other is still in the process of getting to know each other. So I think it'll improve a lot over the next few games (and it's already pretty good).
Just some thoughts. Anyone else noticed any trends, good or bad?
