OLIMPIJA 1 - 2 FEHERVAR
Dragons make a valiant effort but come up short against Fehervar's castle walls
Lavoie and Kerbashian much-missed firepower; Fehervar cannons expose our underbelly with two quick strikes
(Ok, that's enough of the dragon attack metaphors)
Lineup changes
Like a Donald Trump-run company, there were promotions and demotions galore this week!
Pavlin is promoted to the 1st pairing with Mašič, like last year. Atwal and Ege move down to the 2nd and 3rd pairs, respectively, so it's Gregorc-Atwal and Ćosić-Ege.
3rd Line is now a 'kid line', as they say in the NHL, with Sodja and Beričič promoted from the 4th line to join Mehle. Zajc and Simšič are demoted to the 4th line, joining Pance.
Still no Lavoie; I bumped into Kerbashian pre-game and had another lovely interaction with him and his partner - he said his time to resume skating has been delayed until after the next week's break.
Why the changes? Perhaps it was a response to the dispiriting Graz game. It seems like an attempt to spark the team and a few underperforming players. Spoiler alert - I think the changes worked, mostly, with the 'kid line' looking particularly exciting, but we still lost. More on that later.
Stars of the game
* Lukaš Horák - He made probably the best save I have seen live (other than his scorpion kick save away to Villach last year) - a diving paddle save à la Adin Hill and Braden Holtby in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. What a beast.
** The new 3rd line / 'kid line' - Mehle, Beričič and Sodja made for exciting and effective viewing on the ice. I hope to see them kept together!
*** The new 4th line / 'veteran line' - Similarly, I liked how Pance, Simšič (G) and Zajc (A) played together as a very experienced 4th line.
Other notable contributors: I thought Blaž Gregorc had some really nice moments tonight, both offensively and defensively.
Game flow
P1
1940 Kapel SOG dropped by goalie; a positive start.
1902 Atwal takes a walk to the bench mid-play. Quite strange!
1826 Nice move from the new 3rd line. Mehle has a good look saved.
1801 PEN OLL - Pance trips someone, apparently, but it's a very weak call by the refs.
1757 PEN AVS - high stick. 4 seconds later and it's not us who have relinquished a PP but Fehervar this time! Tomaževič, Sabolič, Gregorc and Ege are out for the 4 on 4.
1602 GOAL OLIMPIJA - 1s left of the 4 on 4 - a turnover in the neutral zone leads to a well-taken Simšič goal! Usually when my friend wears his no. 12 jersey, Nik doesn't score. Finally, he does! Zajc on the assist. The 4th line demotions have worked!
1-0
1539 PEN AVS Mehle fights with 43 of AVS. They both go to the box, but then no. 40 AVS also goes. I honestly could not hear what the announcer said in English - I wrote down "chain to the cake?!"... Anyway, it's a PP for us.
1335 Mahkovec hits the post.
1231 GOAL AVS - Fast skating followed by a power move slices right through us and although Horak saves the first shot, the rebound is put in. It's unfortunate, as Crnović, Ćosić and Simšič were all around the goal area but the puck eludes them.
4th Line = -1
3rd Pair = -1
1-1
1204 GOAL AVS - Oh no - another dagger strike. Mahkovec turns it over in our zone and Bičevskis and Pavlin get split for a straightforward goal over Horak's glove. On the replay, it looks like Pavlin just waits and watches the guy shoot. I'd like to see a more active stick from him next time, especially with his long reach. In fairness, it was a quick-developing play. But it's another that has caught us off-guard and we are now trailing the best defensive team in the league.
1st Pair = -1
1st Line = -1
1-2
630 Dangerous pass across our goal from Fehervar.
536 PEN AVS - trip on Červeny. 3 SOGs.
456 Bičevskis hits the post! We really could have done with that goal.
Lots of powerplay passing but not many cross seam passing attempts. These are crucial against big goalies like AVS's as we have to get them moving side-to-side to create space in the goal to hit, otherwise it's just a man mountain staring your shots down. It's easier said than done, but this constant passing around the outside followed by tame shots from the perimeter will not cut it against the best in the business.
246 Gregorc with two key stops at the blue line to prevent a 2 on 0 breakaway. Well done, sir!
29s - a beautiful, flowing move by the 2nd line and pair but Atwal's shot goes wide.
1-2
P2
1653 Great backcheck by Zajc to break up a rush; I am sure the coaches will be happy to see effort like that.
16 Atwal does very well on the boards, using his body first and his stick second. You can tell he coaches in his summers, this is good technique.
1456 Good forecheck by Tomaževič to cause some chaos in the AVS defensive zone.
1312 Smash Attack.
1204 Wonderful pass from Gregorc to spring Mahkovec who gets a shot on goal.
1108 Tomaževič turns it over and two 1 on 0 chances follow. Both saved by Horak.
439 Spinarama and shot by Ćosić draws positive sounds from the crowd.
245 The puck goes over the glass and AVS want a delay of game penalty, but the refs stick with their deflection decision.
123 Sodja with a nice footballer move to disrupt an AVS attack with his feet.
Trip on Ege not called.
1-2
P3
Kerbashian wistfully surveys the ice from the bench during the interval. We miss him being out there, too!
1843 Ege to Mehle deflection saved.
1720 Weak zone entry by Červeny, we have to do better than that. AVS almost instantly get the puck back. It's good to try to bring the puck in rather than dump it, but make more of an effort than that!
1556 Atwal gets 10 minutes(!) for misconduct. The refs must have been out to get him here, as he has form in chatting to opponents. 10 minutes seems ridiculous, though. Thankfully it's not a powerplay.
1220 PEN AVS - trip on Pavlin
1208 Sabla back post shot is well saved.
1059 We try the same sequence of Mašič to Sabolič on the right and then Tomaževič on the left three times in a row... All to little effect. The crowd are not impressed and we look creatively bankrupt.
652 Sabolič with a great looping pass to Kapel at the back post, but again it's well saved.
606 Crnović power move and dangle-y puckhandling is saved.
It's a shame if we can't find the equaliser as we have played better than Fehervar, we just haven't been able to finish. Lavoie and Kerbashian being absent is not helping this, as they were signed to provide just that.
316 DNESKA NE - Horak with an absolutely outrageous paddle save!!! Kolin rubs Horak's stick at the next break.
We go empty net and have a couple of shots on goal, but they are the same low danger perimeter shots that Reijola of AVS has easily swallowed up all night. They miss the empty net and we go out with a whimper in the last few seconds.
1-2
Final thoughts
What are the hallmarks of Coach Karhula's Olimpija team? Strong 5 on 5 play, great goaltending, a poor powerplay and occasional defensive meltdowns. We saw all of these today. Ultimately, this was a really good performance against a very strong team that was marred by two goals in 27 seconds. I think a fair result would have been a 1-1 taking us to overtime, and an ideal result would have been a 1-0 shutout.
There are two ways you can view this - one is that we outplayed a top team and came very close to beating them. Another is that we are doomed without Lavoie and Kerbashian - our finishing is not good enough to beat the top teams without them. Fehervar's goalie has a 0.960 save percentage this year and looked Connor Hellebuyck-esque, at least in stature. We currently don't have enough firepower to beat someone like that consistently. Not many teams do, but I think we should aspire to be a top tier team in this league that can do that. With a full team, we just might be able to.
Two winnable games coming up today and tomorrow against Vorarlberg and Innsbruck - let's keep making positive steps. The lineup changes helped us, so hopefully we can build on those and get healthy again.
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