EIHL Preview: Stars at Blaze – 29 September 2013
This weekend sees the Coventry Blaze play just one game, this being on Sunday night against current league leaders, the Dundee Stars. Dundee are in action on Saturday against the Edinburgh Capitals in the Challenge Cup and so the Blaze will undoubtedly be the fresher of the two sides. They will also welcome Michael Devin into the line-up for the first time as his visa paperwork arrived in time for a flight earlier in the week. Netminder Mike Zacharias is expected to start in net on Sunday after coming off injured last week. Suspensions are rife with both Kevin Harvey (Blaze) and Jeff Hutchins (Dundee; player-coach) both missing for bans received for checking to the head.
The sides have already met once this season with Dundee taking a 3-1 victory on the opening weekend of the season up in Scotland. Defenceman Rory Rawlyk underlined his status as one of the league’s offensive talents on the blue line, scoring twice for Dundee. That was the second defeat of the weekend for Coventry and since then the team has turned fortunes around getting wins against Belfast, Fife (x2) and Hull. Stars themselves have only lost once all season to Belfast and have managed to beat Sheffield, Nottingham and Cardiff, nearly completing a set of victories against the supposedly stronger Erhardt conference.
The game on Sunday sees two form sides meet in what is a throwback encounter to the early 2000’s when the two sides were battling for the British National League title. Fans of both sides enjoyed those games and the prospect of a truly competitive fixture returning to the schedule is very pleasing. Blaze will be hoping that Ryan Ginand and Adam Henrich can continue their hot streaks and produce plenty of goals. The duo of Nico Sacchetti and Jerry Pollastrone are equally as dangerous for the Stars and will need to be kept in check by Benn Olson and the rest of the defensive lineup.
It’s likely to be a close game with a fair bit of physical contact on the smaller Skydome ice. Expect the Blaze to try and come out early and get the jump on the potentially tired Dundee roster. Coach Matt Söderström will be expecting high energy play from all three forward lines, which has proved to be one of the keys to success so far this season for Coventry. All eyes will certainly be fixed on the Midlands on Sunday as the rest of the league tries to work out if Dundee are a genuine contender or an early season flash in the pan.