Manchester Away 03 Dec / Home 04 Dec

[takina]

Maybe we'd rather wait to see what gets said tomorrow but anyway, here's a placeholder for this weekend.
Points wise 4,3,2,1 or another 0 are all possible. Place your bets! 


 

[jen]

Nov 30, 2016 19:08:11 GMT takina said:

Maybe we'd rather wait to see what gets said tomorrow but anyway, here's a placeholder for this weekend.
Points wise 4,3,2,1 or another 0 are all possible. Place your bets! 


 

Who knows!

[chunk]

The away leg will be tough as Manchester seem to be in pretty decent form at home, having won their last two, and we generally don't do well there - in fact, I can't remember us winning there since Storm returned? Hopefully we'll put in a decent performance to give us some confidence for the home game if nothing else.

The home game could come down to how we start. If we fall behind early and the crowd goes quiet then we could be in for a long night.

After this weekend we've got a home game against Dundee, who are in great form, followed by no less than 14 out of the next 15 (1 against Braehead) games against sides in our own conference. This could be our best chance to get some decent points for a while...

[IX2T311]

Looking at four is a bit optimistic, but I'd like two coming from home, any from Altrincham would be good.

I think we were looking completely different last weekend in the first period, as if the entire team had changed (though that changed as soon as the second buzzer went), I'm hoping that against a team less successful than Cardiff we'll be able to maintain that throughout the game, if not a good two periods. Equally I'm hoping our defence won't look completely out of place against a team that's more around our target position.

If Braehead lose both games (against Dundee), which I'd say is fairly likely, and we win one then we'll be one point behind with a game in hand, obviously if we could win both we'd be one point ahead with a game in hand which is even better. Edinburgh have the joy of playing Cardiff on Saturday and Belfast on Sunday, so hopefully we could be looking at them dropping some points there... Though they'll still have three games to play that we don't.

Can't see us scraping more than one or two though, Manchester seem fairly solid on their home ice and we seem fairly weak everywhere, just have hope we get a lucky puck I think.

[fleece]

the good thing about being bottom of the league is that we go into every game as the underdog

I can't help thinking that this team is on the verge of giving someone a damn good thrashing!

[wooly]

Manchester seem to be able to stick 5 or 6 goals past anyone, but then lose by the odd goal, problem is we will struggle to get the odd goal, let alone the 5 or 6 others especially at their rink

[takina]

Have bought some dice from DOPS and the prediction is two points. Of course, as with all things DOPS the reality may be very different ...

[IX2T311]

Odds tonight are 5/6 and 2/1, once again no prizes for guessing which way round those are...

[takina]

Well well, 2 points away. I certainly hadn't anticipated that. Bit concerned that we only managed 19 SOG in 60 mins but certainly more than happy that we grabbed the win in regulation (Is that our first away win in their barn since they reformed?)

Every reason to think that we could get all 4 this weekend. I know it's not great but with Braehead continuing to stutter, a few wins might just see us off 10th place.

Looking forward to tomorrow's game and hopefully we'll see a team with a bit of fire in its belly

[jen]

Good work by Brian Stewart, let's hope with a touch of confidence we can continue the good work.

[jen]

Ok this is what we've been asking for an effort and it produced a result, well played boys.

[takina]

Well it wasn't very pretty for a lot of the time but that's 120 minutes of hockey where we were never behind. Brian looked stronger and more confident tonight which is a major plus. I think we have a long way to go to be a decent team but credit where it's due, they battled hard and found a way to win, am sure that DS will feel majorly relieved after that and, at last, something positive he can build on in next week's training sessions.

[villadave]

thrilled with the brace of wins but cant help but feel that could storm finish, they would have spanked us tonight. several open nets and 1-1s missed. whilst we seem to be growing in confidence going forward, we are still making some horrendous plays at the back.
well done boys. onwards and upwards!

[chunk]

That's a great couple of wins - a low scoring shut-out win away from home followed by a high scoring one in front of your own fans is exactly what everyone wants to see from their team.

I was away at the weekend, so as I didn't get a chance to watch either game, I can't comment on the performances. Hopefully this is just the start of a good run of form.

[IX2T311]

Thrilled with the results this weekend, though I am slightly worried that none of our original top forwards scored a single goal between them, really disappointed in them. I think defensively we're looking more capable, and the only thing we need to do is stop pushing forwards so much; a few times during in the second period the defensemen just held the blue line and we looked so much stronger in their zone, least in my eyes.

Very nice to see Godfrey get another goal, did anyone else think he was going through a bit of null recently? Similar with Klotz, he looked more like himself tonight.

All in all, very very successful weekend, if we win our game in hand over the Clan then we'll be in a playoff spot (as long as Edinburgh don't win their games in hand over us). Hopefully we'll be able to maintain it against Dundee before we go through a bit of an Erhardt grind.

[wooly]

Really pleased I judged the weekend's outcome wrongly, I just hope it's the turning of a corner