Well, that was a weird game. On the plus side as I now live in Nottingham I can write something up real quick
I didn't see last nights game, or our 6-2 victory over the Panthers last weekend, but I was certainly expecting more from tonight. From the start it seemed to feel like we were always facing an uphill struggle and were going to be on the losing side.
From the start we seemed to be playing 'complex' hockey, fancy passes going wrong, fancy offensive pushes going wrong, defence missing. Despite conceding 6 goals, Lyle made some absolutely fantastic saves tonight, a couple of standing ovations to some of the saves, he really did keep us in this game tonight. That and the pipework, Panthers must have hit the pipes 3 or 4 times thanks to our defensive shortcomings...
When we played simple, we pressured Panthers and got some goals out of it, unfortunately we kept deciding to change this and play overly complex hockey that didn't work. The amount of times we lost the puck was unbelievable, perhaps a fine for every crap pass could sort some of the players out?
The Panthers played a good game though, they look dangerous on the push and their defence largely helped St-Pierre out, still he only let in 5, we let in 6
Whilst I don't think the refereeing tonight made us lose, Hicks deserves a slap for being an absolute moron. Like Hanson, he was often so far behind the play he surely couldn't have seen what was happening at the other end of the ice. Why he refuses to call certain things I have no idea, several times our players were down because the Panthers high sticks, whilst no blood was drawn, surely it's a penalty?
The linesmen on the other hand were absolutely ******* useless tonight. I thought the refereeing was bad, but the linesmen were **** for both teams. Whoever the young lad is - I think it's the one mentioned in our program a month or so back? - should be shunted back down to the ENL, he clearly has no idea what the fuck is going on, the next time he wants to laugh at an insanely bad call, perhaps he could do it in the block where the away fans are sitting, might stop him being such an idiot on the ice.
I wish I could think of something more structured to write ala Finny and his game reports, but i'm too disappointed.
Latulippe won man of the match for us, 2 goals and probably deserved it. Michel again played well, but why we refused to hit ANYTHING until we were down 6-4 I have no idea, crap game plan and it clearly doesn't work.
As someone else also pointed out at the game, only in this league could the referees company sponsor the game he's refereeing...
Maybe tomorrow i'll have something nicer/better to write.
Chris. :x