GAME THREAD: Sheffield Steelers v Guildford Flames, Thursday 6th October 7:30pm

[lovedenisvial]

I watched Connelly specifically last night and apart from a couple of clever passes, he was very poor, looked leggy, short on confidence and slow!

In OT I couldn't believe Fox had him out there? when the cross-check happened I thought immediately it was Connelly even thou I was watching from the other end and behind the plexi!
Overall I thought it was a great game to watch, two teams very similar in their play, the turning point for me was the 2 & 0 chance late on in the 3rd period, we should have scored and that would have been 4.2 game over but we didn't and so OT.
Liked the new guy very much and apart from Connelly everyone played their part, only negative for me is Nevalainen does get physically beat up at times, but there has ben many smaller D men who have coped in pretty well this league.

[paul johnston]

I watched Connelly specifically last night and apart from a couple of clever passes, he was very poor, looked leggy, short on confidence and slow!

In OT I couldn't believe Fox had him out there? when the cross-check happened I thought immediately it was Connelly even thou I was watching from the other end and behind the plexi!
Overall I thought it was a great game to watch, two teams very similar in their play, the turning point for me was the 2 & 0 chance late on in the 3rd period, we should have scored and that would have been 4.2 game over but we didn't and so OT.
Liked the new guy very much and apart from Connelly everyone played their part, only negative for me is Nevalainen does get physically beat up at times, but there has ben many smaller D men who have coped in pretty well this league.

Too easy to blame ref ĺright call for me) but look at our failings.

Last year I thought we had great team for OT and this team should be similar with our skaters-missed Mosey for this-but I thought a terrible coach decision to put Connolly out there.

The 2 on 0 was another big factor.

And the Pitule face off flop where Flames won it cleanly whilst he dropped/flopped onto his face and the equaliser was scored straight from this.

Poor scoring (especially secondary) and terrible PP.

As I've said elsewhere Nevalainen is plus 8 on +/- second only behind Petgrave so he is doing something very right.

[BontSteeler]

I also wanted to add, after going 3-1 up, we needed those 5 minutes of composure, players with that amount of experience should be able to close a period down and head into the 3rd period 3-1 up but Petgrave decided to try and play the big man by cross checking their player into our net, I was fuming with him for the rest of the night after that as that cost us, the momentum was with the Steelers and we blew it.

I was also impressed with Guildford, fast, pacy side who all know what each other jobs are, I was highly impressed with their #26 Daniel Tedesco, he was everywhere & caused us no end of problems, he was my Guildford MOM to be fair along with Ciampini for Steelers who I thought had a great game.

[lovedenisvial]

Yea a really good performance from them! Benny did ok! didn't try to be too flash (which is difficult for him) he was very fortunate with his goal thou! his shot was clearly saved by Greenfield but the rebound came right back off Phillips shin pad into the net! lucky / unlucky but they all count. Again! if we had scored at 3.2 (we enough chances too!) we would have gone on a won that game.

[Steve]

Unfortunately I have got to agree about conns.i am a big fan of his but a bad injury at this stage looks like it is a bridge too far for him now .I also made the same remark about him being out in overtime an error by foxy for me.

[smbmetal]

I watched Connelly specifically last night and apart from a couple of clever passes, he was very poor, looked leggy, short on confidence and slow!

In OT I couldn't believe Fox had him out there? when the cross-check happened I thought immediately it was Connelly even thou I was watching from the other end and behind the plexi!
Overall I thought it was a great game to watch, two teams very similar in their play, the turning point for me was the 2 & 0 chance late on in the 3rd period, we should have scored and that would have been 4.2 game over but we didn't and so OT.
Liked the new guy very much and apart from Connelly everyone played their part, only negative for me is Nevalainen does get physically beat up at times, but there has ben many smaller D men who have coped in pretty well this league.

Too easy to blame ref ĺright call for me) but look at our failings.

Last year I thought we had great team for OT and this team should be similar with our skaters-missed Mosey for this-but I thought a terrible coach decision to put Connolly out there.

The 2 on 0 was another big factor.

And the Pitule face off flop where Flames won it cleanly whilst he dropped/flopped onto his face and the equaliser was scored straight from this.

Poor scoring (especially secondary) and terrible PP.

As I've said elsewhere Nevalainen is plus 8 on +/- second only behind Petgrave so he is doing something very right.

I would normally agree with the Connolly call with the ref. However, they called penalties for less during the game I thought.

As you say though Connolly shouldn’t have been on OT in the first place. A poor decision from Fox indeed.

I’m gutted for Connolly as he’s a shadow of his former self. Perhaps this is a season too far for him? He has to sit out I’m afraid when everyone is fit.

Whilst there’s no denying Nevalainen million plus minus points, I don’t rate him as a defender I’m afraid. Against the likes of Belfast and Cardiff he’ll be bullied off the puck.