GAME THREAD: Steelers v Blaze: Sat 1st March

[ginger]

When we flew Fox over to meet with TS before he signed, we lost 6-1 at home to Glasgow and it was a horror show. We actually were worse tonight.

Absolutely not good enough. There's about 3 players who could say they actually put a shift in (Cormier, Huttula and Dowd if anyone is wondering). Greenfield looks knackered. If De Filippo is fit enough I'd play him for a couple now and try and get Greenfield some rest before playoffs.

Some big changes coming next year. D isn't right - Cormier/Huttula/Tansey/Kelly I'd keep right now but unfortunately Diffley/Sauce have not had good years, and Guimond/Vainio just not been good enough.

Forwards is going to be almost a complete overhaul though. Dowd/Juice are fine. After that it's all debatable. Simpson is fine as a 3C but he just doesn't have enough offense for top 6. Whistle isn't hard enough on pucks and loses out in too many battles. Balmas/Watling have been ok, but not great (albeit I think injuries have played some part in that). Rest have just not been where they need to be this year. Vally/Ciampini as said before it's probably a year too many which in fairness is hard to predict.

Losing Golod really has hit hard. Hopefully he's up for a return next year.

I agree with nearly all this.

I do however think that Whistle is a valuable member of our squad. You're probably correct in what you say, but there aren't many Brits out there with his level of skill and capable of 15 goal seasons.

He's a very useful 3rd/4th line player for me.

Regards

Doom

Get your point on Whistle - apart from Dowd/Conway, next top scoring Brits are Waller, Perlini and Whistle.

Perlini is definitely on the downward trajectory and he's probably going to fall in to the one season too far camp soon. Waller quicker/better physically than Whistle but his defensive instincts aren't as good.

I'd argue that maybe a re-think is needed though, and go with top 6 all import, Dowd on the 3rd and 2 of Shudra/Ulrick/IBN/Ripley on the 4th if we re-sign Kelly as 6th D. I'd also take a closer look at McBean in Dundee (I need to watch him closely today as he catches the eye but not really tracked his defensive work etc).

Going to be interesting to see what happens on the goalie front - Greenfield does seem to love Sheffield but I suspect there might be one or two offers from Europe after his CHL performances. Wasn't much difference between him and most of the netties he faced off against. If that happened, I'd love to see us go after Robson and/or bring back Morrone (having a very solid season looking at his sv% and GAA).