Stars Vs Devils - CC 1/4F - 8th Dec 21

Hedd Wyn John

Well-Known Member
It wasn't the smartest move for him to make but he's the only one who has the balls to be physical.
Anger & aggression are good. But they need to be controlled. McNally lost his head over something that was pretty minor. Now he's facing a lengthy ban. As someone pointed out earlier the timing of it couldn't have been worse. We'd just pulled a goal back in the dying seconds of a period where we had no business winning & should have probably been 4 or 5 goals down. The buzzer goes, all the team had to do is go into the locker room & the team ready itself for the next period. 2-1 down everything to play for. Instead Cox & McNally gets involved in some argie-bargie & McNally loses his head & gets a 5 minute major + match suspension. We end up on a 7 minute PK starting P3. Talk about shooting ourselves in the foot.
 

Hedd Wyn John

Well-Known Member
I'm a firm believer in the adage to never go backward. Players age. They're never the same as you remember them and won't perform at the same level. Similarly with lordo, his mindset probably wouldn't be the same. Moving forward is the right thing. It's not necessarily easy, but it is necessary.
If Martin or Haddad were on the phone right now I'd take them over some existing players for sure.
 

bb1

Well-Known Member
The annoying thing for me with the McNally incident is that we had just got a very late goal to get ourselves back into the game that we didn't really deserve to be in and be on a high going into the third period.
It all happened after the whistle went to end the period. If everyone had skated off we may have come out for the third and taken control of game but any chance of that went with McNally losing it.
I would imagine he wasn't very popular in the room afterward. It's not like he was sticking up for someone or anything, just stupidly losing it.
If I were McNally and he got shit in the dressing room I think id throw another fit in there. That's a frustrated player who's scored quite a few goals despite injury yet.....Skalde puts him on a line with Dupont!!! Talk about a low blow. At least he showed more fire and passion than most in that crazy 2 minutes.

Batch and Register were also getting frustrated and showed some passion. I was a huge fan of Mikkelson and I think he's a great D man but where have his crushing hits gone? He plays best with an edge like Batchy and Louis.

As for Skalde, I really think he has no idea on how to turn it around right now.

At the start of the season I thought the guy was a genius, we played great hockey from the get go. Now I think that was because we had a bunch of guys who played using their natural instincts and talent. All of a sudden lines get mixed up constantly and boom we have zero game plan or chemistry.
 

Rhyan48

Active Member
I personally think things are getting worse and not better 100% I don’t know what the hell is going on behind closed doors but this devils side is shambolic most boring hockey I have ever watched , didn’t know Ice hockey was none contact anymore , they ask for us fans to get behind them when we all do looks at the attendance every week , but if things do not change even though I have a season ticket I will not be waisting any more time or money going to watch what is on display , sklade does not seem to have no fire or passion same exuses every week we need to work on so and so , if the devils org is happy with this and the play then we have massive issues they need a massive turn around and ASAP
 

Hedd Wyn John

Well-Known Member
I personally think things are getting worse and not better 100% I don’t know what the hell is going on behind closed doors but this devils side is shambolic most boring hockey I have ever watched , didn’t know Ice hockey was none contact anymore , they ask for us fans to get behind them when we all do looks at the attendance every week , but if things do not change even though I have a season ticket I will not be waisting any more time or money going to watch what is on display , sklade does not seem to have no fire or passion same exuses every week we need to work on so and so , if the devils org is happy with this and the play then we have massive issues they need a massive turn around and ASAP
I don't think Skalde has the answers not because he is a bad coach per se but because recruitment clearly hasn't gone well we're stuck with a team that's substantially weaker than our main rivals. I don't think there's budget to bring in new players. All teams go through their rough patches & we've been there before but this time it feels very different.
 

tim78

Well-Known Member
Under the current circumstances I thought at the beginning of this season it's effectively a rebuild year in which so far we're still in it for everything. I would get concerned if we drop to 5th or below but this league is in a strange time and we're seeing strange results.

I think the quarter final at home will be my big factor on this years team, a 2 goal deficit is nothing and the first leg has set up what can be a far more entertaining and challenging home game to watch.
 

E.D.S.

Well-Known Member
I'm still waiting post Christmas before drawing my conclusions. I haven't commented on individual players (unless it's praise) but I have commented on the style and tactics which I think is an issue. It's difficult to say right now if this is a sticky patch or a sign of the future. Appreciate we all have differing views on that. We were second with a chance of going top so may be it is a patch. I'm going to wait a bit longer. May be turning around the 1st leg deficit could be the kick start we need. Who the hell knows?! Crazy season but it is good to see everyone beating everyone else.
 

E.D.S.

Well-Known Member
I'm still waiting post Christmas before drawing my conclusions. I haven't commented on individual players (unless it's praise) but I have commented on the style and tactics which I think is an issue. It's difficult to say right now if this is a sticky patch or a sign of the future. Appreciate we all have differing views on that. We were second with a chance of going top so may be it is a patch. I'm going to wait a bit longer. May be turning around the 1st leg deficit could be the kick start we need. Who the hell knows?! Crazy season but it is good to see everyone beating everyone else.
As an aside, the guy who threw the bottle at McNally, whilst clearly being a complete and utter tool, kudos to him for the speed with which he desended down the stairs. That was rapid. I thought the footage had been speeded up when I first saw it. Awesome. Well done those that stopped him and prevented McNally from getting a huge ban for giving him a pasting Tie-Domi-style
 

moggy#9

Well-Known Member
As an aside, the guy who threw the bottle at McNally, whilst clearly being a complete and utter tool, kudos to him for the speed with which he desended down the stairs. That was rapid. I thought the footage had been speeded up when I first saw it. Awesome. Well done those that stopped him and prevented McNally from getting a huge ban for giving him a pasting Tie-Domi-style
I'm starting to get concerned that we're heading towards football style issues with some fans. If we're not careful we'll end up with away fans in cages and pull out tunnels to protect players.
 

E.D.S.

Well-Known Member
I'm starting to get concerned that we're heading towards football style issues with some fans. If we're not careful we'll end up with away fans in cages and pull out tunnels to protect players.
Let's hope not but then again I didn't think we'd ever see the level of drunkeness and appalling behaviour that we have done recently, including someone managing to get on the ice. I think (hope) the values and spirit of ice hockey keep it honest and maintain its dignity but when you see similar behaviour at rugby may be this is a societal trend and people just go that little bit harder when they go out because of looming COVID restrictions.

But..... there's no way that fella was drunk the way he navigated those steps. I can't stop watching it! It actually impresses me.
 

bb1

Well-Known Member
Yes we have undoubtedly 2 or 3 of players we could change BUT this team is capable of amazing hockey as we have seen earlier in the year. Its up to Skalde to rekindle that for and sort it out. My problem is that he doesn't seem to have the answers or maybe ability to do that and give us that side we saw against some great CHL teams and against nottingham and manchester pre season
 

BostonBart22

Well-Known Member
Let's hope not but then again I didn't think we'd ever see the level of drunkeness and appalling behaviour that we have done recently, including someone managing to get on the ice. I think (hope) the values and spirit of ice hockey keep it honest and maintain its dignity but when you see similar behaviour at rugby may be this is a societal trend and people just go that little bit harder when they go out because of looming COVID restrictions.

But..... there's no way that fella was drunk the way he navigated those steps. I can't stop watching it! It actually impresses me.
He was drinking coke as he threw the bottle at mcnally on the ice you can see it flash past mcnally
 
A problem we now face compared to the CHL games is that when we played those teams they gave us very little respect in that they played the way they wanted and attacked us from the first whistle to the last which led to open fast counter attacking hockey which suited our style and our forwards.
Mannheim, Lausanne and Lukko weren’t in the slightest bit interested in playing 'trap hockey' , clogging up neutral ice and making it a bit of a war!
A team of small fast forwards were built for this type of game not the dump and chase grinding game you need to have in your armoury to compete in this league!
 

jenks33

Well-Known Member
A problem we now face compared to the CHL games is that when we played those teams they gave us very little respect in that they played the way they wanted and attacked us from the first whistle to the last which led to open fast counter attacking hockey which suited our style and our forwards.
Mannheim, Lausanne and Lukko weren’t in the slightest bit interested in playing 'trap hockey' , clogging up neutral ice and making it a bit of a war!
A team of small fast forwards were built for this type of game not the dump and chase grinding game you need to have in your armoury to compete in this league!
Spot on. You can’t compare the CHL to the EIHL. And to be honest did we play “Amazing hockey” in the CHL? The Lausanne win was a great night but the other 5 games were a big struggle. I’m not saying we should have expected much better when you look at the difference in budgets but I’m not sure it’s accurate to say we played amazing hockey in that competition.
Then let’s look at the early domestic form. Convincing pre-season win against a shorthanded storm team and an early league win against a Fife team that were awful at the time. A couple of convincing wins against Coventry but I remember somebody saying to me back in September (a person that knows their hockey) that we will struggle as soon as teams catch up with us fitness wise. I was hoping he was wrong but he wasn’t.
 

Hedd Wyn John

Well-Known Member
Spot on. You can’t compare the CHL to the EIHL. And to be honest did we play “Amazing hockey” in the CHL? The Lausanne win was a great night but the other 5 games were a big struggle. I’m not saying we should have expected much better when you look at the difference in budgets but I’m not sure it’s accurate to say we played amazing hockey in that competition.
Then let’s look at the early domestic form. Convincing pre-season win against a shorthanded storm team and an early league win against a Fife team that were awful at the time. A couple of convincing wins against Coventry but I remember somebody saying to me back in September (a person that knows their hockey) that we will struggle as soon as teams catch up with us fitness wise. I was hoping he was wrong but he wasn’t.
I agree with this. We won 1 CHL game & were clearly second best in the other games. No criticism intended given the budget differences etc but I don't buy the idea we were a really good team in the CHL & suddenly turned bad. The team has its issues from the start.
 
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