HCP 1/7

HCP 3 - 0 OLL

https://en.sportnews.bz/article/ice-Hockey/icehl/Bruneck%27s-star-goalie-a-natural-boy-with-a-clear-message plus https://swtorstrategies.com/2025/12/somehow-palpatine-returned.html

Well, we need to prove to ourselves that we're not in for just another soul-sapping series against HCP, as this first game had all the hallmarks of our previous convincing defeats at their hands. The best way to do that is to play better at home. Even if we lose, we need to score on Pasquale, simply to show it's possible in the rest of the series. 

In P1, it was pretty even, despite a shot differential in our favour. I also enjoyed the fact that one commentator, the usual Italian guy, was speaking Italian while the 'technical commentator', was speaking, naturlich, in German. Very Bruneck of them!

P2 saw a lot of pressure from HCP onto Tokarski's net, which he dealt with admirably. However, a classic Olimpija moment ensued, which continues to transcend coaching regimes here: a PPG from a too many men penalty. It just can't happen when there's this much on the line and we were duly punished for it. 

It took till the last 10 minutes of P3 for a juicy chance from a well-worked move to happen for us, off the back of a Mahkovec carry-in. We have to try that more instead of the endless dump-and-chase. Sadly, soon after this positive showing, who else but Rok Tičar (who even the Italian commentator identified as a Jesenice man) scored another PPG. To be fair, it was a wonderful assist from just behind the goal line across the to the other side, but I did get a sense that our retreating coverage was slightly casual after a solid early clear on the PK. 

With 6:59 remaining, Mahkovec took a careless penalty in the OZ, which is another unforgivable thing to be doing at this time of year. If I remember correctly, Ville Leskinen's OZ trip was what doomed us against Pusterstal two years ago in the pre-playoffs. We've got to be smarter than that this time around. 

2:44 we go empty net, 2:34 HCP with the ENG after an almost immediate loss of possession. No late 6-on-5 miracles to be had in this 1st game of the series against an Italian team. 

Overall, Tokarski played well, but we didn't generate consistent offense, didn't use PPs to our advantage and gave away too many penalties to properly compete with yet another sizeable and fearsome playoff team put out by HCP.  Let's hope that all changes tomorrow at home in front of a sellout crowd. 

PLAYOFFS HCB 5/7 - SERIES WIN!

SWEET,  SWEET VICTORY!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9iYm9PEAHg Why hasn't this been played at the Super Bowl yet??

Bolzano's Foxes after losing the series 4-1:

https://tenor.com/en-GB/view/dora-dora-the-explorer-boots-oh-man-oh-mannnn-gif-5485872 Did Dora the Explorer reach Slovenia back in the day?

OHB SEEING AN OLL SERIES VICTORY FOR THE FIRST TIME IN YEARS:

https://www.esquire.com/sports/a42219112/shaq-interview-kyrie-irving-germany-accident-documentary/

OHB SEEING A SERIES VICTORY WITH ĆOSIĆ ON THE FIRST PAIR: 

https://giphy.com/gifs/papajohns-pizza-shaq-papa-johns-MvZJtkjJN81Cgx2X9F Please appreciate that I managed to find Shaq in the same shirt for these. Or not, maybe he only has one shirt. 

Game 5 - HCB 1 - 4 OLL, OLL win the series 4-1!

I'll keep this brief, as it's been a bit of a nightmare past couple of weeks for me. Nothing too big/bad/serious, thankfully, but just the stuff that kind of ruins your days. At least the hockey was great!

2 goals each from Mahkovec and Boychuk sealed this one, alongside wonderful goaltending by Tokarski. What a statement to burn the foxes in their own stadium for the series victory!

Series in Review

• Looking back, that Game 1 comeback set us up so well for the rest of the series. It went hand in hand with the mentality and belief that CC has instilled in this squad. As we say in the eSports world (yep, I used to be in the content team of a world champion eSports org! Good times! (I had to keep myself occupied in Montenegro somehow lol)), there was a clear 'coach diff' in our favour and HCB were clearly suffering from 'mental boom' / 'tilt' by the end of Game 4, where they really lost their heads. This didn't make Game 5 a done deal, but CC's coaching and the team's self-belief came up huge over this series. Very, very different to the lifeless Coach Karhula performances in the pre-playoffs two years ago (AT was thrown in the deep end last year, I don't blame him). 
• Also, I wanted to draw attention to the HCB coach walking off at the end of the series without shaking hands, just like their team always walked off without waiting for the end of game awards in our home games. Bad leadership, bad role models, deservedly defeated. 
• Tokarski let a couple of easy ones in early on and then never looked back. If Tokarski has indeed been signed for next season, imagine a Horak-Tokarski goalie tandem when Hory is healthy... That would easily be the best in the league. 
• ZG was right about Tok's few DEL performances overly depressing his value and making him a great swoop for us.
• Reading this about Logan Thompson in The Athletic made me think it applies to Tokarski as well: 
• Thompson doesn’t fill the net with his natural stance. He stands extremely hunched over, compact and coiled, showing the shooter more net that most goalies, then springs into action. Thompson reads the shooter’s body language and stick positioning to anticipate their next move, which is a vital skill for that style. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7129537/2026/03/19/nhl-goalies-quality-start-vezina/

• I told you so - Ćosić was on the top pair for the entire of this series and we won convincingly 😎
• Well done to Mr Ulčar and his backroom staff - Reid McNeill and Dustin Tokarski have been two huge home run hits as injury replacement signings and surely must be staying with us next season.
• McNeill may not be right-shot, but he seems an upgrade on Kirichenko. I expected Clay to be out for much longer, but he's actually back in for this series. How will the defence, which is quite stacked now, line up?

• ZG argues for keeping the pairings the same, after the good performances vs HCB.
• Ćosić Brennan
• Halbert McNeill
• MacW Gregorc
• Kirichenko 7th D, as he was out for a while.
• When I told ED about this, he said Kirichenko on the 3rd pair or lower would be a crime 😆 He said he would mix and match Kirichenko, Brennan, McNeill and Halbert on the first two pairs. He would opt to place Ćosić and MacW together on the 3rd pair, to "teach them some manners and protect Tokarski". I also enjoyed his "Gregorc and Crnović on the 4th pair just for the domestic players quota".
• Let me know in the comments what you guys think! We'll find out tonight, I guess!

EDIT: They have released the pairings:

McNeill Brennan

Halbert Kirichenko

MacW Gregorc

Crnović 7th. 

Comment: Ayayay, no Ćosić. McNeill and Halbert looked great together, but I suppose the Halbert-Kiri synergy from the regular season won out. Clearly CC still does not fully trust Ćosić, even to be 7th D. Pretty disappointing, but at least Drozg is back and Mehle is 13th F.

Mr Ulčar and his team after signing McNeill and Tokarski as injury replacements:

https://giphy.com/gifs/mlb-baseball-l2SpUepuM4qgdzbeU

Dustin 'Ticker' Tokarski when he sees the other team:

https://www.redbubble.com/i/photographic-print/ITS-TIME-TO-STOP-FILTHY-FRANK-by-jenkii/24847051.6Q0TX https://www.hkolimpija.si/en/igralec/144125/ Filthy Frank, I miss you.

Oh-oh, it's HCP!

https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/90566580/Thumbs-Up-Emoji

https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/515850454/Shell-Shock

In all honesty, I think we will run HCP much closer than previously. With CC and our new, supercharged squad, I have confidence. The new coach and players have not had the shellshocking experiences with HCP; we even have Petan from them (although that didn't work one bit with Ege and Atwal last year, but the less said about them, the better). With the aforementioned upgraded mentality and belief that CC has injected into the team, we have as good a chance against them as we would have had against Graz (who we were going to play if KAC had gone through, as expected). 

Yet, HCP did just sweep RBS convincingly. I do not expect to get the away wins we got vs HCB, but then I didn't expect us to get those, either. I was wrong last time I predicted this, but I'll happily be wrong again if we win - I think it will be a Game 7 series with home wins and difficult away games. The beauty of sport, as I said before, is how unpredictable it is. Let's strap in for the ride! (Please let us solve Pasquale, I can't stand seeing him play like a rat and win LOL.)

Even if we don't get past HCP, it'll have been an extremely successful first season of this new 'project' under CC. Let's hope that gives them some freedom to play in a flowing fashion, instead of the fusty freezing up we have done against HCP in the past.

PLAYOFFS HCB 4/7

OLL 4 - 0 HCB, LEAD SERIES 3-1

• We got the home W - and didn't beat just HCB, but the refs, too! We did have PPs, it wasn't a complete farce, but there were some of the usual head-scratchers, to put it politely. We should never have been on a 5 on 3 penalty kill (PK), as Bradley sucker-punched Simšič and didn't get penalised. Now, there might have been a touch of embellishment from 12, admittedly, but I think you'd all agree that if an OLL player did that in the ICE League, there is no way he is escaping at least a minor penalty. Anyway, I suppose we should just be grateful that the multiple reviews on the goals all came back positive for us and accept that there will be obvious missed calls - but we can still keep transcending them with quasi-divine PK performances.
• Talking of that 5 on 3 PK, that was absolutely heroic. Surviving 1:43 of 5 on 3 was a clear turning point in the game and fuelled our momentum to close it out convincingly.
• Heroism wasn't confined to the PK, either - finally, Sabla had a Captain's moment. As I've grown older, I have tried to lean more on gratitude for something 'better late than never' than rueing and stewing over why it took so long to happen. This is one of those things. Sabla had an incredibly difficult act to follow after Pavlin's statesmanlike captaincy (I would follow him into battle). In my opinion, he hasn't outwardly shown himself to be a wonderful leader - but he might be great in the locker room. Tonight, though, he did show some serious leadership. HCB had started lashing out in the final few minutes of P3, just looking to hurt OLL players. A net-front mess saw Vallentine (a longstanding rat of a player) purposely target Mahkovec, who hadn't engaged in a fight, in brutal fashion. Sabla said enough is enough and knocked another HCB player down (HCB18, on second viewing) and gave him by far the most violent beating I've seen an OLL player inflict. If you start it, Foxes, the Dragons will finish it. 

https://www.simpsonstreetfreepress.org/history/Muhammad-Ali Plus HCB Wikipedia and OLL website

• How have I got this far without mentioning Tokarski? His first shutout was extremely timely and involved possibly the save of the season - yes, even beating out Horak's balletic goaltending. It was a blocker save for the ages that he had no right to make. Sadly, his 'Dus-tin, Tok-ar-ski' chants fall very far from the greatness of '(boom boom) Hor-ak! (boom boom) Hor-ak!'; his absent acknowledgement of the crowd and post-match celebration also made me miss Horak quite a bit. Get well soon, Hory! Hopefully Tick-Tok will continue to hold the fort well in your absence! (Surely we go 'boom boom Tick-Tok from now on?? 😆)
• Goals:
• Messy net-front PPG (Quince from Meyer)
• Rush drop-back from Meyer to a trailing Drozg
• Messy net-front - Kapel gets it out from under his feet and in from a tight angle (Quince A).
• Cherry on top ENG from Pance (Mahkovec and Beričič As)
• HCB again walked straight off without engaging in the post-match ceremony. As NR pointed out, spurning a free gift bag that often includes some expensive wine is just silly - as well as very poor manners. As a teacher, I thoroughly approve of our teaching these bad mannered foxes a lesson with a resounding 4-0 victory that ended with HCB visibly losing their heads. I know some people said it wouldn't be so bad to have the Saturday home game to properly celebrate a playoff series victory - I think I would actually prefer crushing their spirits with one more away win tonight. 

PLAYOFFS - HCB 3/7

Takeaways as OLL go 2-1 up in the series:

•  ...well that was absolute robbery! ED and I were discussing how playing Italian teams in particular for away game seems to have a peculiar draining effect on our hockey, whether against Pustertal in previous postseasons or Bolzano this time around. This happens in a way which doesn't for the Austrian teams, at least not as consistently. It may just be the time of year/style of playoff hockey, but as someone who sat through the England v Italy Euros final, I can say that Italians do turn on some kind of dogged Roman spirit in these situations. 
• A difference in this run compared to our previous Italian (mis)adventures is the thievery we are getting away with. Bolzano must be sick to their stomachs about losing both their home games thus far, but especially this one. They dominated and we looked entirely ineffectual for essentially 58/60 minutes (the last minute of P2 saw three good chances). One scarcely-believable minute in P3 offset all the Foxes' hard work, much to Olimpija's ecstasy.
• Finally, we made Harvey look mortal. Letting 3 goals in 38s from 12:39-12:01 in P3 was a kind of dreamlike experience for Olimpija fans (those who didn't time an awful toilet break, at least - my condolences to JT, for instance, who told me he left his TV at 2-0 and came back at 2-3 😆😭). 

Olimpija for 38s in P3: 

https://imageresizer.com/meme-generator/edit/Super-Saiyan

• The first was a simply gorgeous PPG, created by an exquisite pass from Halbert diagonally to a drifting Mahkovec, who launched a one-timer into a net that finally showed some emptiness amidst Harvey's supreme coverage.
• 24s later, Drozg controls the puck in the OZ and Gregorc slides the puck over to an encroaching MacWilliam, whose shot deflects beautifully/horrifyingly (depending on your fandom) over Harvey's shoulder and in. MacW was being referred to as Leon Draisaitl in the locker room speech video after, presumably for scoring the high-up goal. The deflection was pretty important in that, though!
• 14s later, Meyer strikes down the middle - cue even greater disbelief from the commentator and fans!
• Both away games we have gone 2-0 down and both we have won 2-3 (one OT, one regulation). It doesn't seem sustainable, yet we keep doing it!

• HCB's goals showed some concerning defensive coverage lapses from us. 
• Their first was just a gaping hole left down the 'royal road', with players standing everywhere but the most dangerous area of the ice. I am no expert, but I don't think you need to be one to say 'yeah, probably don't do that again'. It was good movement from HCB, but we can't be so easily manipulated into opening up like that.
• Their second was a lightning-fast transition behind us that led to another Bradley goal, 1-on-0. Horak is able to make those death-defying saves that magically keep us in games; Tokarski, while very solid, does not seem to match that ability. It made me think, if Tokarski has played NHL games in his career, surely Horak should have, too. Opportunities are not always equal!
• I don't mean to slag off Tokarski, though, as he did a good job tonight. For example, he squeezed his arms in very well with 1:12 to go in P3 and HCB at 6-on-5 to stop a shot, like a Sumo wrestler doing an ottsuke move to deny a hazuoshi (if you leave your armpits open in sumo, you are getting pushed out - much like leaving them open as a goalie will allow pucks in (sorry, I really want to get more sumo into OHB lol)). There was one heart-in-your-mouth moment with 16s left, though, where they found a wide open back post, but the HCB player couldn't corral the puck and marshal it in. ED and I agreed that we were in 99% stress mode:

https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/151944550/99-Level-of-Stress Game is Detroit:Become Human, a brilliant game from Quantic Dream, who are sadly now employed by NetEase to make a sloppy multiplayer game. Go back to single player greatness!

• We firmly lost the penalty minute battle (8-14), although it was not fully our fault. One moment in particular is instructive, alongside the generally moving goalposts for what was considered a penalty (ED saw that Zrnić and Piragić (EDIT -I made a mistake originally and said Zgonc, the linesman) were refereeing earlier and immediately predicted some shenanigans. As usual, he was correct!):
• Alex Petan was slashed. He was, understandably, unhappy about this and dropped the gloves to fight the offending player, who also dropped his gloves. Somehow, instead of ending up as just nullifying the original slash, it was Bolzano who received a powerplay. I couldn't believe my eyes - ED told me the commentator said "they must be joking!" in Slovene. I checked on the ICE website and Petan was given two minors for roughing, even though barely anything happened in the fight. Extremely perplexing and decisions like that cannot happen when the games matter most. I hope those refs get demoted or sent elsewhere because I do not want them officiating our games again.
• For us to be 2-1 up in the series despite continued calamitous refereeing decisions like the above is a testament to the resilience of this team. 
• We have to keep trying our best to avoid their flaky discipline, though. TJ slashing a player off the puck in his nether region, punching another in the face and chucking the puck out for a delay of game all in one shift was not conducive to that goal. I hate us playing dirty, as, yes, I do see these guys as role models for young men (in a world where they really need positive ones). I won't have an especial go at TJ again, but this is a bad look - especially when we were getting severely outplayed. We ended up winning, but if you want to be as dirty as the Florida Panthers, you need to be as dominant as them, too. Otherwise, it's just the worst of both worlds - poor hockey and poor character.

• Overall, given how the game went, we have to be extremely happy to come away with a win. Hopefully the day off today lets the players reset so we can play more of our usual style of hockey at home on Tuesday. 
• Finally, happy birthday to Technical Manager Andrej Vidmar, who is a sprightly 70! I have heard wonderful things about him and am proud that we have someone in the team with such history and who, as CC said, "bleeds green and white".

P.S. Please enjoy ED's post-game messages:

PLAYOFFS - HCB 2/7

The game experience began with the ICE awards going to TJ for MVP of the entire league and Meyer for the 'most efficient player'. I know I've been on a generational run of veteran-bashing (see what I did there?), but you can't help but love those two. Also, my issue is not at all with the players themselves, it's with the philosophy of the import signing process, as I hope is fairly obvious.

Reid McNeill fully dumping a HCB player into their bench, head-over-heels:

https://makeameme.org/meme/this-is-sparta-l6e3mc / https://www.eliteprospects.com/player/45609/reid-mcneill

Takeaways? Well, apart from my Ragu di Bologna from Vito Maccheroni last night, here you go:

• It was probably the loudest I've experienced in Tivoli, at least without there being some aggravating factor (e.g. scummy opponent). 
• Tokarski had some big saves.
• Harvey, the HCB goalie, was like a brick wall. Shots were 44-23 in our favour and yet they seemed relatively comfortable with him between the pipes. HCB were more clinical with their chances than we were, which helped that comfortability.
• Our PP looked better than the last game and hit the post, but we really needed a goal on the man-advantage and we did not get one. If the refs are going to continue to make a show of themselves, making special teams count is going to be even more important than usual.
• Essentially this was the same game as the last, but we did not get our deus ex machina late goal. Both home teams thus far have probably deserved to win, but neither did. I assumed it would be a classic playoff series, with home wins standard and away wins very hard to come by. The beauty of sport (and the reason you should not gamble on it) is the kind of narrative unpredictability we are witnessing here.
• Looks like my original game 7 prediction might have been better than I thought after our stealing game 1 gave me extra hope. Maybe it's a home win that we need/will decide it?! 
• We are reset back to square one. It will take a Herculean effort to go back to Bolzano and come away with a win, but it has such big implications for the rest of the series. If we can get another and a home win after, it puts us firmly in the driving seat. If Bolzano find the home victory, suddenly we might be the New York Jets' Sam Darnold (current SB champion with the Seahawks 😝) 'seeing ghosts' of Italians knocking us straight out of the playoffs, like the past two years.
• JB put it succinctly when I saw him at the end of the game (which was nice, I hadn't seen him in a while!) - "They played well! 🤷". 
• ED - "We were better. PP was good/dangerous. Their goalie (and 2 posts?) made a difference, shots were 44:23. They scored on two good passing sequences on our only 2 bigger D mistakes. We are back to needing an away win."

 

Edit: I forgot to say, they also did a better job of defending Harvey's net front than we did defending Tokarski's. That was a big difference in goals going in for them and not for us.

 

PLAYOFFS - HCB 1/7

RAPID REACTION (at least by OHB's standards!)

HCB 2 - 3 OLL (OT)

• Was my prediction of a game 7 win too pessimistic? ED has instructed me not to jinx things, but we've already got the away win that I expected to be the main issue for us heading into this series. 
• That's 2 OT wins in 2 vs Bolzano - both seem fair representations of where the respective clubs stand. It's close, but we edge them. Let's hope we keep doing that.

https://imgflip.com/memetemplate/411925754/Shaq-I-owe-you-an-apology

• Reid McNeill - wow! The author of both our goals in regulation. This looks like a genius move from Mr Ulčar, if he really was targeting McNeill for next season, as the press release indicated. He seems slightly undersized in heftiness for a playoff D-man, but the man can play! For someone with the meagre point totals he has put up over his career, he chose a heck of a time to start scoring and setting up goals, for us at least! 
• Dustin Tokarski - he had a shocker on that first goal, which inexplicably went in with a low-power shot that he saw cleanly. Yet, he redeemed himself later in the game. Getting the win should give him confidence; I hope that is the last shocker we'll see from him this playoff run.

Seeing Mahkovec stick handling his way through two defenders in OT to set up Petan at the back post:

• I thought about using a certain South Park meme, featuring Randy, to describe my reaction to Mahkovec and Petan's OT winner, but thought better of it, since I am not really anonymous 😅 WHAT A GOAL, THOUGH! Mahkovec putting on his finest display in the biggest moment of the season thus far is just so gratifying. Also, clearly the OHB effect was in play, since I got his jersey in the break 😂😎 P.S. Wasn't it great that it also came so early in OT, given that it's a full period of 5 on 5 now!! After 11 parents' evening meetings and an 11-hour work day, I appreciated it! 
• We did well to survive the P1 onslaught (15-5 in shots to them) and come back to win this. Let's hold serve at home on Thursday and keep attacking when away. 

EDIT: I failed to mention the gorgeous tip off McNeill's shot by Polei, AKA Mr Renault. The fact that it was at 6-on-5 with the empty net and 30-odd seconds remaining made it an even sweeter equaliser! 

G47-48 - REGULAR ENDS, PLAY BEGINS!

G47: OLL 4 - 3 HCB (PENS)

G48: HCP 3 - 2 OLL (AOT)

HIGHLIGHTS - Well, beating HCB has a lot more meaning now that we are playing them in the playoffs! Mahkovec's penalty was exhilarating and it ended up being the difference, alongside Kolin. 

LOWLIGHTS - Losing agonisingly in OT vs HCP around playoff time - sometimes the hockey gods like to play the classics, I guess (for newer readers, the last two seasons have seen HCP dump us out of the pre-playoffs). 

MAIN TAKEAWAYS - Two tight games against top opposition convey that we are rounding out into playoff form at just the right time. Tokarski played vs HCP and looked somewhere in between Kolin and Horak. His movement style is a bit unusual, like a kind of AI camera following the puck, as one of our preseason games had. It's slow and smooth, but a bit robotic. He did a decent job, but not enough to where I think he absolutely must start over Kolin. To be clear, I think he will, but Luka has shown he can handle HCB. As CC told me himself in his interview, he will take the consistent 6/10 performances over the 8/10 followed by a 3/10. That tells me Tokarski will start and Kolin will be the backup. How long a leash Tokarski gets is another matter, though. Is one bad game enough for Kolin to start the next? Do we alternate, like the Bruins should have with Ullmark and Swayman in the playoffs 3-4 years ago?

OHB's state of the nation

Apologies for the short nature of the writing I've done on the games in 2026 - it's been another tough start to a year! I have parents' evenings this week, because of course I do, so it'll be tough to try and get a juicy match report done for each playoff game before the next one. I will try my best, though, as they could be the last ones for a while! I sincerely hope we go far, but there is of course the possibility that it's another one-and-done. 

I do feel the need to apologise, I expect more out of myself to make OHB a really indispensable read for the dedicated fan, yet I don't feel I have been able to do what I have wanted to. In fairness, I got left with far more work to do this year than I had expected to have (at school). That is obviously my main priority, but in an ideal world I would find a better balance instead of the cycle of exhaustion I've been put through (please never question why teachers need so much holiday - just don't 😂😭). 

The YT interviews were a great leap forward, but the catch-up reports feel like steps backwards, at least on my end. CC's words on things taking a long time in player/coach development have been giving me some comfort on this front. I won't get everything perfect in my second season doing this. I hope that the reduction in quality has been at least somewhat compensated by the quality.

Overall, we've been a bit unlucky with injuries at this stage of the season, but we've dealt with them as best we can. Tokarski and McNeill provide vast experience and pedigree, so if anyone can come right in and make a difference, it's those two. 

What OHB is thinking about with the playoffs approaching:

I do find it compelling that CC's answer to 'why are we foreign-veteran-heavy and Slovene-youngster-light is that development takes times - years! It helped me to evaluate how the blog is going more fairly (see above), especially with counteracting the faint sour grapes I felt on seeing YouTuber Robert Greeley waltzing in and getting the kind of VIP locker room treatment that my almost-two-seasons of less sexy work about the club has not granted me (yet?). Given the dirty looks some of the players give me (Gregorc in particular lol) perhaps it's best that I do not share a confined space with them... (Sorry Blaž, I never meant to disrespect you, but I do want Ćosić and Bohinc to start a youth movement on D, as you're well aware by this point 😅).

Big but incoming, no Nicki Minaj - BUT, I do still have a lingering feeling or question about this. Is success worth becoming an old Canadian team instead of developing a largely young Slovene team? You might fairly say, shut up my lad, we're in the automatic playoffs and riding high. Signing Tokarski is a good thing, not a sign that even newly-minted Slovene citizen Horak can be replaced by an older Canadian. 

(An unkind person might make a meme of Mr Ulčar going 'Yes, yes! More 35+yo Canadians!' in an Emperor Palpatine suit in the scene where he tells Anakin to give in to the hatred, but I am a very kind person 😉. To be fair, though, I think you have to say he's done well here, as I don't think there were many better options than Tokarski available. Like ZG said to me, Tokarski's value was depressed by his time in Frankfurt, but he could go right back to his AHL ways for us now. The club have had goalie steals in the past (see Mr Butara and Horak, for instance!))

Yet, I still feel a touch ill-at-ease about how casually we have gone down this route. Is this building for the future by establishing a platform of success that the younger players can grow up around and break into, making it their own in the future? This is the argument against the NHL teams who 'tear it all down' and rebuild. Buffalo, for instance, is only now looking like they'll make the playoffs, 15 years on from their last time there, with multiple rebuilds along the way. 

Now, we don't have a draft system (I wish!!!!!!), but I do wonder if they thought about taking the hit and playing the young guys instead of signing lots of veterans at any stage of the budding Olympia project under Mr Lefebvre's ownership. Maybe that will come next season, but it seems like a lot of the current squad will be returning. Which is obviously good, right? For continuity? I can't say I wholeheartedly feel that, to be totally honest. Maybe I am just a spoilt fan who has some quixotic dream of a young, competitive side with the likes of Mehle and Ćosić not as side characters, but faces of the franchise (in the near future). Maybe that's completely unrealistic.

I spoke about a bit of this with NR and he said that with the state of adult and junior hockey in the country, he thinks there's no choice but to join the import arms race with the other top teams in the ICE League, pretty much all of whom are dominated by foreign veterans. 

In order from 1st to 6th place in the table, here are the imports as a percentage of the squad (including all dual nationality players for fairness):

G99 - 13/33 = 0.394

KAC 13/32 = 0.406 (How did they get Jon Kavčič, the young goalie prospect? Luka Gomboč, too - surely we should be accumulating all the young Slovene talent?!).

RBS 12/35 = 0.343 Surprisingly low, but then their junior system is cracked, too, as the kids say.

HCB 18/29 = 0.621 (they are helped by dual nationality players, e.g. Italian-Canadian like Petan is). Also, did anyone know they have Matt Cairns, who is Canadian-Slovene?! Does he ever play for the national team? Why not, as a 3rd round pick of the Oilers, previously?!

HCP 16/28 = 0.571 (more dual nationalities)

OLL 14/32 = 0.438 (including dual nationalities like Simšič and Kumanović, who are very local dual nationalities (Croatia!)).

Lowest to highest: RBS, G99, KAC, OLL, HCP, HCB. We are just on the upper middle side of the top-6 and would be even lower if Simšič and Kumanović were not counted. I included them because I included all dual nationalities, as many of those in the other teams are much less local than those two. So, perhaps this is simply the cost of doing business, as NR was saying and as the club have clearly adopted. Still, I can't shake my sense that we aren't doing enough for the young players. Can we get a feeder team going in the Alps League? I would absolutely adore that kind of structure. At least we'd be able to see the young guys playing big minutes that way! It seems unlikely we'll replace Celje with our own team in that respect, though. 

Logistically, I don't think it could work to have a kind of team like AT used to Captain for KAC (their 'Future Team'). Ice time in Tivoli is probably at enough of a premium as it is, let alone with a whole other squad. Think of how amazing that would be, though - Mr Lefebvre, bankrolling the future of Slovene hockey with an OLL Future Team, giving Bukovec et al top line minutes, star power, cheaper tickets... I have to stop dreaming and say that I'll have to trust in CC that practice is where the young guys will get their development, I suppose.

Anyway, I'm pretty sad that we didn't get to face RBS in the playoffs. Kind of cowardly on their part. I mean, I get it, we probably caused them more issues than HCP (EDIT - on checking, both us and HCP went 3-1 over them...). Yet, it would be such a juicy matchup, with the key storyline of CC facing his old team, alongside our former RBS players. Alongside that would have been an Italian derby - all the while saving the planet, with much-reduced bus journeys. Now, we have to drive for nearly 5 hours to Bolzano. HCP have less to drive than I thought, but it's still over 3 hours. 

Predictions in the comments, anyone?! I think/hope we will win in game 7. I think we can manage a single away win and then can hold at home. After that may come the potential RBS matchup we were all waiting for...

EDIT: ED sent me this article about the ICE League wanting to reduce import players to a maximum of 4 by 2030: https://swisshockeynews.ch/en/shn/international/europe/icehl/the-austrian-federation-wants-to-reduce-the-number-of-import-players. Slovene youth supremacy here we come?!

EDIT OF EDIT: ED pointed out that the article is from 2021, so priorities may have changed. He said they might be moving away from a goal like that, just like politicians moving away from environmental goals by 2030 (in Britain at least), as the alternatives are more attractive for the present. He used the Swiss League as an example of one that is doing well by increasing the imports; the 'lower quality' that may result from fewer imports in the ICE and Alps Leagues would probably not go down well with the all-important sponsors... Still, they haven't said they have officially relinquished that goal, so there's always hope!

 

Storylines to watch in the playoffs

• Is Tokarski going to show his AHL form or his DEL form? If the latter, how long till he gets replaced by Kolin?
• Can we play our style in a playoff environment? I don't think the ICE League goes full NHL playoff mode, where penalties gain higher thresholds to be called, but how we take the pressure and how sensitive the refs are will count for. a lot. If the refs desensitise a bit, I think that would be good for us and everyone involved, as this season was ruined at times by overly-active calls.
• Can the Meyer-Brennan axis pop off, as in the regular season?
• How does the defence fare, assisted by DEL captain Reid McNeill? He played for CC in his first stint as a HC in Denmark, so there's history there. He's a LHD, so we don't have any RHDs at all now, without Kirichenko.
• In other defensive news, can Ćosić show us why he deserves to play more when everyone is healthy? Can Bohinc play a role if needed?
• Does the defence line up like this? 

Ćosić-Brennan

Halbert-McNeill

MacWilliam-Crnović/Gregorc

Bohinc

Out - Mašič, Kirichenko.

Let me know in the comments if you have any other storylines to watch and thank you for sticking with OHB throughout the trials and tribulations of this regular season!