OLIMPIJA 4 - 1 BOLZANO
YOUNG GUNS BLAST FOXES AWAY
MEYER AND BRENNAN MAINTAIN POINTS LEADER RACE
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Stars of the game
* Luka Kolin - Why be a Kolin doomer when you can be a Kolin bloomer? One bad game does not a bad goalie make, as Shakespeare might have said. Kolin's agility in and out of the butterfly stance is a marvel to behold, meaning that nothing will get past him without elevation (barring one dodgy push over the line tonight). I hope he can build on this confidence going forward.
** Miha Beričič - scored a short-handed goal and was involved with other dangerous turnovers and breakaways in our favour. I hoped he would take advantage of the move up to 3C and he has done, in addition to his usual elite penalty-killing alongside Jaka Sodja.
*** Jan Ćosić - he looked so much more assured on the ice tonight, like the bulldog we saw glimpses of last season. He defended with menace and seemed to take any foreign presence in the defensive zone as a personal affront. More of this, please! Bohinc should follow this example.
Goals
P2
HCB - a messy goal-line scramble sees Bolzano eventually get the puck over the line, but the goal is reviewed for illegal pushing of Kolin. The call on the ice stands, unfortunately. On the replay, it's Mašič who isn't strong enough to stop the Bolzano forward come in and poke away at the puck.
OLL SHG - Beričič from Sodja! Wonderful work by Sodja to turn the puck over near our blue line and race forward, finding Beričič who one-times a backhand stab high into the top corner past the goalie's poke-check.
OLL PPG - Brennan from Meyer and Quince. Kolin made a huge pad save to start this move up the ice; it's Brennan who casually finishes it from a central position, with Mašič providing a helpful screen. TJ took it from behind him and scored blocker-side.
P3
OLL PPG - Meyer from Mašič and Quince. Our PP lasts all of 4 seconds as Meyer launches one from the top of the HCB right circle. Quince won the faceoff, Mašič passed to Meyer and we're done! Talk about efficiency! He scores glove side with a screen from Quince.
OLL ENG - Simšič from Sodja. Good work from these two to finish the game with an empty-net goal, after Petan couldn't manage the shot up ice previously.
Near-Misses
We certainly had our chances - both Mahkovec and Meyer missed seemingly wide open nets. Mahkovec also hit the post. On the other hand, Luka Kolin made save after save in high-danger scenarios, including when defenders (yes, Mašič again) made a complete mess in front of him.
What I like to see:
- Two short-handed goals in two games?! Two Simšič goals in two games?!? What's happening?!?! 😆
- The young guys showing what they can do:
- Kolin back to showing off his elite potential in net once more
- Ćosić looking ready to get back on the 2nd pair
- Bohinc making fewer mistakes
- Sodja and Beričič making key impacts
- Bukovec getting a bona fide scoring chance
- The line combinations being shaken up with the multiple injuries/absences. Seeing Pance on the top line was a real treat. Alongside Quince and Sabla, that was a pretty formidable and gritty first line. Moving Meyer down to the 2nd to join Petan and Mahkovec also made a lot of sense, going for a more skill-based line. Mehle reuniting with Beričič on the 3rd was another sensible move, even if I would have brought Sodja up and sent Simšič down to be 4C. Obviously, with hindsight these changes worked. Even if they hadn't, I appreciate and respect that we are trying different things when under the strain of having key players missing. To beat a strong team like Bolzano amidst all this is a real accomplishment.
- More nastiness from our defenders. Kirichenko has been the lone wolf thus far, but Ćosić made moves to join him tonight. Not every defender can defend this way, but Bohinc could certainly take a leaf out of their book and play with a meaner streak. Hopefully our new signing, MacWilliam, can do this, too.
- Continued resilience from the team. This was such an impressive win given how many next-men-up we have had to move around. If we can keep winning big games while we let the likes of Polei and Halbert recover, then we will be in a very powerful position come the tail-end of the regular season.
- Continued rocking atmosphere at Hala Tivoli. Things started quiet in the first period, but got pretty loud in P2 and P3. Hokej was certainly najboljši v živo tonight!
- More collective belief in our players - part of why I was so frustrated with the reaction to Kolin's poor performance against Innsbruck was because I knew that wasn't representative of who he was as a player. Of course, I criticise players regularly - but I keep in mind whether this was a representative performance or not. Crnović doing very little other than replacement-level defending and conceding penalties is representative of his play. Mašič defending poorly is generally representative of his play (I can sense NR nodding his head furiously in the distance, like a Jedi sensing a disturbance in the force). Let's all try to be more careful with our judgements going forward, especially toward young players with high potential.
PUSTERTAL 5 - 3 OLIMPIJA
HURTING DRAGONS SENT PACKING BY WOLVES
SECOND PERIOD PROVES OUR UNDOING ONCE MORE
GOALS
P1
HCP - Bohinc loses the puck behind net. It comes out to the blue line and a rebound off Kolin is bundled in behind Crnovic, again. It's a good forecheck, but we can't be losing the puck like that. I'm a big fan of Bohinc, but this kind of error needs to go if he wants consistent playing time. Crnović, meanwhile, seems to be standing around watching pucks go in right in front of him game after game after game. I am sure it's hard to work out where the puck is in moments like that, but it's not a good look for someone whose hold on a starting spot should already be tenuous.
OLL - Meyer from Mahkovec. What a strange goal! Mahkovec goes down with four HCP players around him. Whilst seated, he attempts to fling the puck into the goalie, who can't corral it. As the HCP defenders do their best Crnović impression (O_O), Meyer spots the puck lying uncovered and steals in to score. To make things even stranger, the goal is checked for offside. When that is 'inconclusive', HCP challenge for a hand pass by Mahkovec, when he was flailing around on the floor. This is not given, so the call on the ice of a good goal stands. Even better, HCP get a penalty for delay of game, due to the failed challenge! We didn't end up using that PP very effectively, but it was still a nice moment.
OLL PPG - Brennan from Quince and Meyer. A last minute goal as TJ shoots with a deceptive curve of his stick, finding Pasquale's 5-hole from his left circle 'office'.
P2
HCP - they find an equaliser with a quick pass to the high slot. The resulting shot goes top corner. Kolin seemed to get a piece of it with his blocker, but not enough.
HCP PPG - Crnović gave this away with an extremely obvious interference. HCP snipe one from the right circle. There's no contest on the net-front screen, either, making it impossible for Kolin. Bad defending all around.
HCP - a brutal goal, as our PP ends and the penalised HCP player exits the box to score a 1 on 0. It's well-taken, finding the gap under Kolin's right arm, but what a sorry way to concede immediately after a positive PP. This feels like game over.
P3
OLL SHG - Simšič from Quince. An awfully-timed toilet break from me! Great work by Quince to catch Pasquale around the back of his net and find Simšič for the goal. Couldn't have happened to a nicer goalie...
HCP - it's a nicely worked wraparound pass to the low slot. Sabla was tracking back, but him and the defenders get spread wide and Quince is too late to lock up the shooter from behind.
THOUGHTS
- Pustertal are easy to hate after their consecutive seasons of sending us home in the pre-playoffs; of course, as soon as we get good, they are the team that gets even better.
- One positive thing about them, though, is their commentator. I appreciated his efforts to occasionally speak in English and I think he does a very good job as a solo presenter.
- Although we lost, I think this was a positive encounter overall. Without the likes of Boychuk, Horak, Polei, Halbert and Kapel, we were far from full strength. Yet, we kept things close - outside of a 3-0 second period, we were 2-1 in P1 and 1-1 in P3. This proves that we can hang with these guys and I look forward to facing them when we are healthier. If we can keep up with them at the top of the table, we will not have to face them in the first round of the playoffs, which will be a mental boon against mental boom (gaming term for losing the mind game convincingly against an opponent).
- The few OLL fans who made the trip were impressively loud.
- HCP still did some of their usual bullying, too - Mašič, in particular, was getting victimised by HCP's forecheck.
- Life is more than just outward appearance, and I've mention this before, but wow - HCP's coaches are comically ugly. They are like Disney villains out here 😂 They certainly know how to coach, though. I was really impressed with how they prepared for us. You could see that they had taken into account our tendency to flood the OZ with numbers, particularly in terms of simultaneous entries (e.g. 4 players crossing the blue line at the same time). To counter this, they aggressively defended high up at the blue line, hoping to deny entries and force turnovers, instead of sinking deep to defend more safely. It was a high-risk, high-reward strategy to take advantage of what we like to do. Spoiler alert, it worked! I need to keep learning how to analyse hockey at a high-level - maybe we have been doing a lot of this and I just haven't noticed. I did notice HCP, though, so fair play to them. We need to work out how we can adjust to take advantage of their counterplay - that's where the real fun begins!
OLIMPIJA 5 - 6 INNSBRUCK (OT)
SHARKS BITE BACK AGAIN IN THE DRAGONS' DEN
SLEEPY SECOND PERIOD LEADS TO ANOTHER DOWNFALL
GOALS
P1
OLL PPG - Quince from Meyer and Mašič. Quince scores off a rebound with a powerful backhand. I love his fishing celebration on the big screen!
OLL PPG - Quince from Mašič and Meyer. 1s left on the PP and it's Quince in the net-front zone again!
P2
HCI - They enter the zone confidently and shoot past Horak from a wide angle, glove-side. I feel like we're missing a big, brutal, stay-at-home defenseman to blow someone up who is trying to do this kind of thing. Mašič and Brennan are finesse players not capable of that and it's them who let this happen.
HCI - Just over one minute later, they score again. It's nice movement in the OZ, possibly a set play. A fly-by tip is not picked up and they score off it. Again, it feels we are missing defensive-focused defenders. We have loads of guys who can score, but if we can't defend, what's the point?
HCI - Simšič can't cover a back post pass, leaving the shooter with a wide open net. Is it going to be another 6-7 loss? HCI are cutting us open in the NZ and our DZ.
HCI - Another one! They're going through us like a hot knife through butter! It's a one-timer shot from a central position that beats Horak's blocker.
OLL - Brennan from Mašič and Quince. TJ goes bar-down (bar-deezy, in Toronto), taking matters into his own hands from his left circle 'office'. We later have a goal overturned for goalie interference, which was a dubious decision.
P3
HCI - Horak nearly keeps it out but accidentally blockers the puck in.
OLL PPG - Boychuk from Mahkovec and Petan. As our 5 on 3 ends, Boychuk scores back post.
OLL - Brennan from Quince and Mašič. 4 assists for Mašič now! Brennan from the right circle this time. The cool-off in scoring points didn't last long for him!
OT
HCI - with 11s left, HCI score the OT winner. TJ can't track back sufficiently at the back post and Horak chucks his stick away in fury.
THOUGHTS
- Firstly, sorry this is so late. I was pretty furious with how little the security guards seemed to care about my safety, as teenage idiots were throwing coins at my head during this game. What was I doing to warrant this behaviour? I was sitting on my own and writing in my notebook. When I tried to do the right thing and report it, rather than deal with it myself, the boss was absolutely unbothered. Thankfully, the younger security guard I first dealt with was at least suitably embarrassed for their lack of action/care - I was told to wait to get hit again before they would give them a warning. Ooh, shiver me timbers! That'll teach them - shall we let everyone in the stands know that you have two free shots at throwing metal objects at other people's heads? That would make for an interesting fan experience, wouldn't it?!
- I may have got myself in a bit of trouble with the club again for posting about how 'hokej is not najboljši v živo' if the security guards don't care about fan safety, but it's the truth. That's their new tagline, 'hockey is better live', which I totally agree with, aside from this situation. I used my club contacts to express my dismay and was told that things would improve, so I hope that is the case going forward. In the meantime, thanks to JB and others for telling me to sit near them till the security can work out how to do their jobs. It's crazy that there needs to be some informal mafiosa-style protection for other fans instead of just having the guys paid to look after people do it, but living in Montenegro taught me that this kind of thing ends up making up for a lot of modern society's failings!
- VBT pointed out that "with higher attendances, more people with no supporter culture come as well". Hopefully they can work out how to behave properly, otherwise the extra ticket money will be coming at too high a cost, in my opinion.
- Onto the game, what a stinker. P1 seemed like the start of a cruise-control win over a much worse team, but then P2 slapped us silly. HCI must be our 'banana peel' team, as we keep slipping up against them. What did they do well? They seemed to have made adjustments in the first interval to start taking better advantage of the gaping space we leave behind us when we commit heavily to the OZ. We weren't able to readjust well enough to win the game, unfortunately.
- To be fair, we did have injuries to deal with (not to mention overturned goals!). Tian Hebar was playing forward on the 4th line, like a kind of Oliver Kylington in the NHL (another D who got forced into playing F). Still, we should be beating these guys convincingly and we did not. Perhaps this performance, in combination with the injury to Halbert, prompted the signing of Andrew MacWilliam, a 35yo AHL veteran who played for Coach Cooper at RBS in 22-23. He doesn't score many points, so let's hope he's as advertised by the club - physical and uncompromising in the DZ. It had started to occur to me that, although our defenders mainly fit Coach Cooper's system of points-scoring, offensive players, we do still need some proper stay-at-home defenders, which we don't really seem to have outside of the young guys like Bohinc and Ćosić, who aren't getting much playing time. Macwilliam's signing will hopefully assist with that, but we'll see.
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