25-26 GAME 1

OLIMPIJA 8 - 1 VIENNA 

DRAGONS DEVASTATE THE CAPITALS

OLIMPIJA EXPLODE FOR 8 GOALS IN HOME OPENER

PLAYERS AND STAFF BOTH NEW AND OLD COMBINE TO BRILLIANT EFFECT

https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/game-of-thrones-bts-video-safely-burns-dragon-fire plus the two logos

imgflip.com featuring Vince McMahon (WWE co-founder)

LINEUP CHANGES

• Unfortunately, it's back to the OG preseason game lineup, with Bohinc and Mehle out and Ćosić 7th D.
• Curiously, Mašič joins Brennan on the top pair, breaking up what I thought was the clear best partnership of the preseason in Brennan and Kirichenko. Maybe Kirichenko was still not 100% after his illness.
• Bukovec is the 13th F over Kumanović, which I think is the right decision. Bukovec very obviously makes an impact every time he's on the ice, which is difficult for a 4th liner.

STARS OF THE GAME

* TJ Brennan (2G) - TJ was poetry in motion at times tonight. When was the last time that an Olimpija player's skating was drawing audible gasps from the crowd? Scored two quality goals amidst all his intelligent link play. He is living up to his 'offensive dynamo' billing and then some!

** Marcel Mahkovec (Smash Attack G, 2A) - agonisingly hit the post early on, but scored a beauty of a penalty shot that opened the floodgates for the rest of the game. He looked so dynamic out there, back into the Young Player of the Year swing of things. Assisted twice, too. Other players scored more goals than Marcel tonight, but it was the nature of his performance that elevates him here (also, a Smash Attack goal is obviously worth more than a normal goal 😂). Voted MVP of the game.

*** Coach Cooper - not a player, but had his fingerprints all over this offensive transformation. I never thought I'd see the day that OLL would play possession-based attacking hockey, yet here we are. What a way to start the season, after some up-and-down preseason outings.

Other noteworthy performances - Robert Sabolič (2G, A), Evan Polei (2G), Nico Meyer (3A), Alex Petan (3A (2A officially, but I think he deserves credit for one more)). Note how 3/4 of these guys and 5/7 of this entire section are new additions to the club! Lots of hat-trick avoidance fines to be handed out, too. Maybe that's just a British thing, though... 

Finally, a goalie is not in my stars of the game - but only because Horák didn't have much to do. He did have a wicked assist on the chance that created Mahkovec's penalty shot, though. See below for more!

GOALS

P1:

0-1 VIC - A pretty sensational side-on backhander from Randy Gazzola, formerly of Asiago. Horak was also partially-screened on the shot. Sometimes you just have to tip your hat to the opponent!

1-1 OLL - Alex Petan's brilliant neutral zone (NZ) turnover springs Mahkovec, who shoots for a rebound that is put in by Evan Polei. Great teamwork by the 2nd line. I'm trying not to gush too much here, but I really love having Petan on our team. Being able to rely on a centre to make plays like the one he did here just makes attacking + defending so much easier for us. How he doesn't get given the secondary assist here is crazy to me (hence why I gave it to him in the Stars of the Game section).

P2:

2-1 OLL - Mahkovec scores on a penalty shot. Let's not forget how he got it, though: Horak scythed a pass down the centre of the ice, a bit like a goalie trying to score an empty-netter, which left Mahkovec with a 1-on-0 rush. He got hooked from behind and the refs rightly gave the penalty shot. Marcel did his favoured low-left rifled shot (above the pad but below the blocker) and hit the back of the net.

3-1 OLL - An absolutely gorgeous passing sequence that goes in a triangle from Meyer to Boychuk to an oncoming Nate Halbert, with Sabla providing net-front presence. I didn't see Halbert as a big offensive player, but checking his stats, he has assisted quite a bit in the past few years. This time, he finishes a passive move, scoring a beauty. I loved his big-screen celly, going 'who, me?'. A top-tier choice from a stay-at-home defenseman who left the house for a great goal! 

4-1 OLL - Just like in preseason, it's Meyer yet again on the forecheck, what a Brad Marchand-esque pest he can be for opposing defenders! (This is a huge compliment, to be clear!) His adept harrying of the defender causes him to tie himself in knots and fall over, allowing Meyer to make an equally excellent carefully-weighted pass across the net-front onto Robert Sabolič's stick. Once it's on there, you know where it's going: into the roof of the net!

P3:

5-1 OLL - PPG from TJ Brennan. He finds space in Vienna's left circle, collects the pass from Nico Meyer (again!) and then himself, before shooting high and finding paydirt, to use an NFL saying.

6-1 OLL - Mašič finds TJ Brennan at the back post with a scintillating cross-ice pass. This goal was assigned to Nik Simšič by the in-stadium team and Zack Boychuk by the TV commentators. Fellas, TJ is the only guy on the rink with a white stick 😅. Sabla gets a secondary assist. This one brought an 'arriba!' from Pečo on the announcement, which I enjoyed.

7-1 OLL - It's the 2nd line combining yet again! As Pečo's velvety vocals are still ringing out in the stadium for the previous goal, Petan and Mahkovec cleverly ricochet the puck off the boards behind the net, leading to Mahkovec setting up Polei across the net-front for another back-door goal. What a performance from these three tonight! 

8-1 OLL - A Sabolič PPG classic as Kirichenko finds him slinking into Vienna's left circle for a one-time slapshot. See, when you don't make it your sole powerplay move (like most of last season), it can work sometimes! Petan on the secondary assist.

NEAR-MISSES

P1: A 2nd line move sees Mahkovec hit the post on a 2-on-1 pass from Petan. Clearly, we weren't lacking for goals in the end, but this could have made it three sumptuous goals from the 2nd line!

WHAT I LIKED TO SEE

• Flowing team offense - do I need to explain this after we dropped 8 goals? I'll keep it brief. We were attacking in waves, finally putting together the passing sequences that we had been attempting and failing in the preseason. This was beautiful to watch.
• Clayton Kirichenko - his physical presence continues to grow. I love to see someone properly hit another player, not just 'love tap' them as we have tended to do in the past. I also enjoyed Kirichenko's attempt to catch the VIC goalie out with a feinted dump-in shot from the blue line that nearly went in, hitting the unaware goalie on the shoulder.
• Lukaś Horák's puck play - his morphing into Ederson/Alisson continues with that gorgeous long pass to spring Mahkovec for a free rush chance. Doing this comes with more risk, but it seems like he's found a perfect balance of knowing when and when not to risk a play like that. I didn't think Horak could get any better or more admired than he already was, but it's happening before our very eyes!
• Maks Bukovec making an impact in limited ice time - Olimpija have had too many passengers in recent seasons and Bukovec ensuring he is making plays with every opportunity he gets is a great example for others to follow. Whether it was a ferociously successful backcheck or a crunching hit into the boards, I was happy to see him flashing in the time he was afforded.

WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO SEE

• Let me preface the following thrice: I'm not trying to be mean here. +/- is a fallible stat. Coach Cooper very clearly knows what he's doing. Yet, this is my blog, so you'll get my opinion. For me, either Rožle Bohinc or Jan Ćosić should be starting over Aljoša Crnović. This is shown in part by the latter managing to get a -1 rating in an 8-1 game. That's pretty hard to do; he was the only player to do so. I wish him the best, I really do, but at the moment all I see him doing is blocking the development of players with much greater potential than what he's shown so far at 26. Now, I understand that putting two young players together may not be what Coach Cooper wants out of his 3rd pair, hence why I am accepting Gregorc's place there (at least for now; I would prefer Ćosić and Bohinc to play together on the 3rd pair). But please, please can we start 86 or 14 over 44? He is a solid reserve player but I think we are doing the team's current and future prospects a disservice by not giving our talented young D-men more ice time. In fairness, they did play Ćosić with Gregorc occasionally, but I don't see why you wouldn't just start him or Bohinc over Crnović. One key thing I was looking forward to this season was tracking the development of our young defenders. They can't develop to their full potential if they don't play. My apologies if you are bored of me talking about this already, but I am a man wedded to the truth and I shall let no man put that asunder! (Red Dead Redemption 1 mission title reference for any gamers out there)
• Talking of selection, please play Žiga Mehle over Nik Simšič. We can find someone else to join Marly Quince on the penalty kill (PK). Simšič has offered nothing offensively for most of last season and this entire preseason (they wrongly assigned him one of TJ Brennan's goals, ironically), while Mehle looked like he was gearing up to start making a big impact in the preseason. Again, it's not just prioritising future potential here - Mehle offers more than Simšič right now!
• One more move, but down instead of out: Bine Mašič had a great assist, but looked relatively shaky defensively. I would like to see Mašič go down to the 2nd pair again with Halbert, pushing Kirichenko back up to the 1st.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Well, the game started rather inauspiciously, with a delay to re-drill the goal holes in the ice. This brought sighs of 'classic Olimpija'. Thankfully, the old Olimpija was swept away after that. What came to replace it was truly astounding. Vienna were not great last season, but this was not some seemingly-awful team, like EKZ in preseason. The Capitals hung with us in the competitive 1st period, ending 1-1. It was our waves of offensive pressure that broke them down in the 2nd and 3rd periods. 

You can tell that we have populated the team with Canadian players because there was so much silky passing and skating on show. Most important, though, is the Canadian coach at the helm of this Olimpijan ship. Yes, I'm still nagging about some finer points of the lower-lineup team selection. But I think we all must tip our hats / kapo dol to Coach Cooper, as this was a sublime performance with which to open the season. Now, onto VSV this evening to see if we can replicate this system of play against a tougher opponent...