EIHL week 6 round-up
Another week of hot ice action in the Rapid Solicitors Elite Ice Hockey League with the majority of the action in regular season play but with a couple of Challenge Cup match-up’s thrown in for good measure.
Come Sunday night there was little change from last week with Belfast Giants still the team making the early pace in league play. Doug Christiansen’s men remain three points clear of Nottingham and Sheffield at present with Coventry and Cardiff occupying mid table and the rest, headed by Braehead, having some catching up to do already.
It’s been quite a spell of road hockey for Giants and they have just completed four straight games away from their Odyssey base. The past weekend saw a road double at Hull and Coventry but once again Giants rose to the challenge and picked up all four points on offer. Saturday saw a tough game in Hull against slumping Stingrays. In fact the home side probably played their best game of the season so far but still lost out by the odd goal in seven. Stingrays currently have the number one powerplay unit in the EIHL and counted for all three of their goals against Giants but the visitors came back from 3-1 behind in the 25th minute to win with the GWG arriving from Jeff Mason on the powerplay in the 55th minute.
Sunday night saw Giants take the game to opponents Coventry early on and after one period they had established a 3-0 lead. Giants were never going to give that up and skated to a final 5-2 win with George Awada rolling back the years with 3+1 on the night.
Tucked nicely in second spot are Nottingham, with the Lace City side taking full advantage of home games with Scottish sides Edinburgh and Braehead to add four more valuable points to their tally. On Saturday Capitals put up a fair bit of resistance early on and in fact led twice in the opening session before Panthers powered clear to win 7-3 (seven different scorers). Sunday saw Braehead’s plans upset by travelling difficulties and Panthers played out a very efficient sixty minutes to blank the Scots 3-0. Craig Kowalski posted his second shutout of the season with 22 saves, while at the other end of the ice Clan goalie Jaakko Suomalainen was the star man, keeping his side in a game longer than Panthers would have liked despite their dominance.
Sheffield are level on points with Nottingham and they had a split weekend of Cup and league. Saturday saw a 2-2 Challenge Cup tie at home against Coventry but next night it was a very gritty and determined Steelers who went to Wales on league business and ground out a 3-2 win after a shootout. It had looked as if Steelers, backed by an impressive John DeCaro between the pipes, would take the game in regulation before Devils tied it at two late on but it was that man Mike Ramsay who scored in the fourth round of the shootout to give Steelers the extra point.
The point that Cardiff gained in the loss against Steelers ended a not too bad weekend at all for Gerad Adams’ men as 24 hours earlier they had travelled up to Kirkcaldy and returned with a 4-2 win against Flyers. Not a great couple of days for the Scots though as on Sunday they put in a very poor display and were thrashed 8-3 by Edinburgh in Scotland’s capital. Massive relief this one for the home side as they snapped a 38 game winless run going back to last season. Rene Jarolin was the star with a treble but also chipping in were Tomas Valecko 2+2, Bari McKenzie 1+2 and player/coach Richard Hartman 0+4.
The final game of the weekend saw a couple of teams really struggling for form but it produced a first win of the season for Dundee as they saw off Hull 3-1. Stingrays had high hopes for an improved season this time around but so far it has been a real struggle and they will be hoping to spark into life sooner rather than later.