Steelers v Devils - 04/09 - League - 7:00pm

[Scott]

Aww man what a poor show. We made a Steelers team down 2 players with no prep look like world beaters.

I'm a big fan of Lyle, but damn he was poor. Now I didn't see him midweek, but he looked shakey last weekend too. Their first and last goals were horrific. Having said that, it could be to do with the confidence with the D in front of him. With performances like that we can't rely on him to grind out results.

And wtf was with our PP?? The first one was pretty decent but it went downhill rapidly, Steelers looked more dangerous on the penalty kill than us on the PP!? Perhaps that's why they were playing dirty and taking so many PIMs. Our shooting was horrific - right at the goalie, or a miss.

Brad... what the hell is the point in fighting with less than 5 minutes left? It should of happened wayyy sooner. What's the point in him at all if he's not going to throw his weight around and get in their goalies face? At least he kicked the crap out of that guy, who didn't even remove his helmet!

On a brighter note I thought Tylor and Justin were awesome, and things can only get better surely?

I'm not gunna suggest firing people, yet... but G seemed pretty confident that our road form would be better this year on the Q&A yesterday - it's gunna have to happen soon. We're out of the top 4 unless things get better in weeks, not months.

 

[Chris]

Well, at least I can watch Nottingham this season...

Wednesday wasn't played at normal game speed, but we looked far better then than we did tonight, our D was almost nonexistent at times, our forwards looked slow, we couldn't reached the numerous rebounds offered up and on the powerplay we did what we always do, have 1 player infront the opposing teams netminder and 4 players near the blueline taking long range shots...

Michel was about the only player that offered any counter to the Steelers checks and big hits, and he ended up coming off injured. Voths fight was largely pointless and shouldn't have gone ahead, clark could barely stand before the fight had even begun...

A big improvement needed for tomorrow or it could be a massacre :?

Chris.

 

[Kipper]

Solution simple----sack the coach after one game. That'll sort it.

 

[sniper13]

I know there are some fan on here who see no wrong and its only the first game and all that but dont we pay to watch a team that will compete from the get go. If everyone is saying its only the 5th game and then the big ice crap comes up again its all excuses we have heard before.

At the end of the day we have Lyle to give us that extra import and that slot is taken by G?, looking at last nights game we dont have enough firepower and I feel we are weaker than last year, the second line is ineffective and the first line is affected by pelle's size you can see matzka is frustrated he has the skill but not enough around him to take advantage. Every chance the steelers had they took players like league and Talbot are class and finished with clinical accuracy something we can only dream of. Sorry if its a bit of a rant but it was a long drive uo and back to watch that

Oh one last point the steelers goalie was immense once again down to good RECRUITMENT.

 

[Finny]

To put it into perspective, after reading the Steelers forum most of their fans reckon it was the best performance from a Sheffield team in about 5 years i.e. since Blaisdell left.

Looking at the team they have put together, they could well be favourites for the title now. That's assuming they last the season without having to make changes due to more money problems.

 

[J.B]

Solution simple----sack the coach after one game. That'll sort it.

Seems a bit harsh after 1 game Kipper. Putting the whole team on 2 weeks notice should do the trick :lol:

 

[cardiffdevil]

According to Dave Simms while commentating on the sky game, he mentioned our score against steelers and said the Cardiff devils have got no chance of winning the league this season :?

Well we may as well give up now the great oracle has spoken.

Like everyone I am hugely disappointed with this result, I know we had preparation but it was only two games, one of which we lost.

As has been said Sheffield have so much to prove and obviously wanted it more. Sport is a strange thing teams can seem to go from the sublime to the ridiculous in such a short space of time.

It's a long season, I remember some years where we lost out first few games then went on a huge winning streak.

I'm sure for some football fans its a bit like watching Cardiff City!!!

Anyway roll on tonight and lets hope for the team that played Wednesday not the one last night. If they could also stay out of the sin bin that would help

 

[Anonymous]

I know there are some fan on here who see no wrong and its only the first game and all that but dont we pay to watch a team that will compete from the get go. If everyone is saying its only the 5th game and then the big ice crap comes up again its all excuses we have heard before.

At the end of the day we have Lyle to give us that extra import and that slot is taken by G?, looking at last nights game we dont have enough firepower and I feel we are weaker than last year, the second line is ineffective and the first line is affected by pelle's size you can see matzka is frustrated he has the skill but not enough around him to take advantage. Every chance the steelers had they took players like league and Talbot are class and finished with clinical accuracy something we can only dream of. Sorry if its a bit of a rant but it was a long drive uo and back to watch that

Oh one last point the steelers goalie was immense once again down to good RECRUITMENT.

Agree totally with the first paragraph and also with G. I think G in D playing against Hull, Newcastle, fine. When it comes to the bigger teams personally I think he can look a bit out of depth, just my opinion.
Don't agree with the Pelle - Matzka bit. They have already shown signs of linking up well and I'm pretty damn sure that within 3 games or so, they will be great together on that 1st line with Max too. From what the guys at the game have said, we lost mainly due to individual errors, giving goals away. If we are going to blame individuals, then lets blame them!

 

[Scott]

IMO, G icing is a big step backwards. But if that's all we can afford, what can we do? He is perfect injury cover against some of the lower teams.

I think we're missing Jarvis big time... Have we actually scored a powerplay goal yet? A team with a half decent powerplay probably would have beat Sheffield comfortably.

 

[Anonymous]

Have we actually scored a powerplay goal yet?

Didn't we score a PPG and a SHG on Wednesday? Wednesday being 4 days ago when everything looked hunky dory!!
Your right though, we must improve our PP, something that wasn't great last season. It will come, hopefully starting tonight against a strong side. Come on Devils!!

 

[Scott]

Have we actually scored a powerplay goal yet?

Didn't we score a PPG and a SHG on Wednesday? Wednesday being 4 days ago when everything looked hunky dory!!
Your right though, we must improve our PP, something that wasn't great last season. It will come, hopefully starting tonight against a strong side. Come on Devils!!

To be honest I didn't go Wednesday... I'm basing this on what I saw last night and last weekend.

Hopefully we'll be a different team on home ice tonight

 

[Mooney#16]

I know nothing about the game last night. All I would say is I think the Devils need to establish early in the season how they want to play on the road in order to put up a decent challenge.

As said playing big ice over small ice is an issue. On the small ice you can skate a lane very quickly with the puck and get into scoring positions with limited passing required. On big ice however passing is a far greater weapon with skating off the puck the bigger issue.

Defensively you can trap up or double up the fore check on the smaller ice and it is very effective as the lanes are much smaller for guys to skate in and you can shut break outs down by good positioning high up the ice. On bigger ice the lanes are much bigger and you can't wait for players to came in to your area of the ice. You have to direct players where you want them hence I'd rather see a wing lock used with one forechecker to direct the rush and slow it down whilst keeping on player back to assist the D in clearing the zone as quickly as possible.

So in a nutshell the Devils need to be two different teams which is twice the systems to learn and given that its early season that is alot to absorb. A lose on the road is an expected outcome but give it a month and then see where they stand. If after a month things haven't changed you begin to have a case for complaint but not after one lose on the road.

 

[DevilDom]

Went to the game last night and we were very poor - no excuses with officials or anything else - just very poor.

Our D was nervous and error prone.
We looked slightly better going forward but came up against an in form NM and seemed to lose heart.
Our PP was awful and we couldn't even score on two 5 on 3 chances.

I thought it was a very difficult choice for Devils MOM - they were nearly ALL terrible. Yes, some individual errors cost us and Pelle, Sawyer and Tylor were slightly less terrible than the rest but things really need to improve dramatically for us to challenge the top 4 and not to be severly embarassed away to the Giants or Panthers.

Overall, i'm very disappointed after all the hype and build up to the season, but it is just one game. I do however think that tonight's game will be more about damage limitation more than anything. Hope i'm wrong but I just hope we keep the score reasonable.

 

[Rempel16]

That game could easily have been 5-1 to us after the first period. We created a lot in that period but due to lazy shooting and a very lucky goalie (he can't catch, rebounds everything) we couldn't get that crucial first goal. I felt that had we scored one in the first we would have scored a few more in quick succession.

2nd period we came out a completly different team- rubbish! 3rd the same.

I have to disagree that the pp was bad. I thought it looked allright, we are definitely skilled enough to actually set up and create chances.

I'm slightly concerned that all of our shots from the point were wristers, although that could have been part of the gameplan with the goalie. We also conceded too many odd man rushes and that needs to be rectified immediately.

Not going to single the bad players out but I think Tylor was our best forward and Sawyer was our best d-man, he's going to be too valuable to fight soon!

 

[Block 2 Noise Boys]

According to Dave Simms while commentating on the sky game, he mentioned our score against steelers and said the Cardiff devils have got no chance of winning the league this season

DS is obviously the font of all knowledge - wonder if he can give us an insight to next week's lottery numbers, so I can buy the all-seeing twit a one way ticket to Antartica - where he can bore the penguins to death :lol: :lol:

 

[jodysstillagirlsname]

It may have been Steelers best display but it was our worst in 10 years. Lyle had an awful game, every time there was a rush on goal I had the same feeling in my gut as when Cugnett was netminder, he even made a Cugnett style howler at the end. The rest of the team were no better. They came out fighting with Tyler hitting everything but Steelers got the first goal and then there was nothing to offer from the Devils. Couldn t shoot, score , pass or take a pass and didn t even make the Steelers work for their victory

I know it was the first game, but against a club, supposedly in dissarray, a rookie coach , no game time, to turn us over in that fashion dosen t inspire me with confidence for tonights game, there was plenty of support up there for them, such a shame the team let down 'the sixth man' so badly.

I won t be travelling away in the near future to support the team, perhaps until the play offs if we even qualify and if we perform like last night many times through the season we won t.

I can put up with losing to a better team , having bad luck, having bad referees but lack of effort totally turns me off the game. Some of our players, and not the new ones, have forgotten what is expected from Devils fans from the players

 

[wildthing74]

Finding it hard to think of any positives from last night.Our D was shocking for the most part and we left Stevie out to dry time and again and he had a poor game too.
I think the PP was shocking.Wasted two 5 on 3's of a minute or more and if anything Sheffield looked more like scoring SH.
We should have taken advantage of Steelers lack of numbers and been hitting early on.Grind them down to tire them out and take advantage later on.
Their n/m was immense but time after time rebounds went by the wayside with nobody driving the net and taking a chance.
Excellent performace from the officials who only called what needed to be called for both sides although baffled by the 2 min minor for roughing for both for the'fight'.Clark must have been away with the fairies before a punch was thrown as he did not look with it.Called Brad up to go and then kept is helmet on and was battered within seconds and blood everywhere but again not sure if this was caused during the fight or by hitting the ice.One of our guys was taking photos throughout and he looked in a bad way when he left the ice.
No players stood out although as been said Tylor and Sawyer probably the only 2 to come out with any credit.
To be fair Matzka and Pelle are showing flashes and Pelle took a horrendous slash from Hewitt was lucking was seen by the linesman as play had gone on an Steelers even scored before it was called back for the initial offense.
Still tonights a new game and while common sense says we should get ripped apart based on the way we played last night,maybe we will come out flying and hopefully put on a show for the home fans.

 

[James]

We came to the conclusion that he called roughing for the fight to avoid the automatic match ban for both. It wasn't like Clark really threw a punch

 

[jodysstillagirlsname]

Their n/m was immense

He gave away loads of rebounds but our team were too slow and failed to pressurize him, I knew there was a reason for the black pads, to hide the puck when giving away rebounds

 

[bluedevil]

We made the n/m look better than he was by poor shooting. Most shots on target were straight at his chest!