Elite League weekly round up
Well, if you are a follower of Sheffield Steelers you are certainly starting 2009 in a happy mood. The heavy programme of matches over the holiday period have seen several tough assignments for Dave Matsos’ men but they have come through looking very strong and have now raced to a seven point lead over Nottingham, with Belfast and Coventry still hanging in there - the four now looking to be the realistic challengers for the title come the end of March.
Steelers had to dig deep into their resources this past weekend, coming up with a couple of overtime wins thanks to strikes each time by Jeff Legue. Perhaps surprising they had a real struggle at Ice sheffield on Saturday, squandering a 3-goal lead against the then bottom club Hull Stingrays before Legue struck at 61.57 on the powerplay. Next night a titanic match up in Coventry saw a similar situation with Steelers building a 3-1 lead only for defending EIHL champions Blaze to storm back, forcing overtime, where Legue came up trumps again for Steelers, this time with an overtime shorthanded breakaway.
Currently in second spot are Panthers, who on Saturday made it seven wins from eight games with a 4-1 success against Blaze but then came unstuck against Manchester Phoenix on Sunday, where the home side came out on top by 4-2 thanks to a couple more goals by EIHL top goals and points scorer David-Alexandre Beauregard.
A good four point weekend for Belfast Giants, who are slowly getting back to full strength. Phoenix were seen off 3-1 in Belfast on Saturday before Giants edged a real tight one in Cardiff the next night by 2-1. Blaze have dropped to fourth after only picking up the single point as noted earlier while Phoenix and Devils occupy the mid table spot that look likely to be their final destination unless they can suddenly find a remarkable run of winning form.
At the other end of the standings Basingstoke replaced Hull as bottom club after losing at home to Devils and then to a goal 11 seconds from time in Hull, who therefore picked up three points overall the past weekend following that surprise point in Sheffield.
As if Bison did not have their troubles to seek they lost outstanding goaltender Kevin Reiter to an ankle injury and the outcome of their season may well depend on how quickly they can get him back playing as well as he has been recently.
Both Edinburgh and Newcastle were not involved in league action over the weekend but were matched up on British Knockout Cup duty. A first leg 5-4 win for Vipers at Whitley Bay was followed by a 2-1 victory for Capitals in Scotland on Sunday. The aggregate was therefore tied 6-6 and after overtime could not find a winner a shootout resulted in Vipers scraping through to the semi-finals. I’m sure that’s a big relief to the North East side who have been blighted by injuries and player unavailability of late - and to add to their woes have now lost sniper Todd Griffith who asked for and was granted his release effective after Sunday nights win, where he scored one of the Vipers penalty shots.
No one scored heavily individually over the weekend, nor were there any goaltender shutouts but we do still have a Player of Week and this time around it goes to……………Jeff Legue of the Sheffield Steelers.
Legue totalled 2+0 including the overtime winner on Saturday against Hull and then grabbed that all important shorthanded overtime winner in Coventry the next night. Big goals from the speedster in the Steelers uniform and a worthy winner of Player of the Week in our eyes.
