Blaze 8, Giants 0 

The Giants blew it big time.  When your goalie has a disaster and your forwards don’t show up you know you’re in for a long night.  Despite out shooting the Blaze 37-22 the Giants where embarrassed by the likely 06-07 league champions, Coventry Blaze.  I say likely in that in this sport you don’t know what’s going to happen next.  We’ve went from good to bad and it could equally happen to Coventry but the unfortunate thing is we now need that kind of collapse from them to have any chance.

Minard was pulled early in the third but to be fair to him, it’s not like he’s blown up to often this year and on a number of occasions has kept us in games.  There’s a general thought that he’s playing injured right now and that might well explain things.  On top of that when your teams concedes three short handed goals attention must turn towards the players on the powerplay unit as much as it should towards the man between the pipes.

All accounts suggest the Giants opened up the game well and 8-0 in a way flattered the Blaze, but that’s all irrelevant.  The fact is that we lost 8-0 to our league rivals.

WHAT ARE WE MISSING?

Character…  The first four years we had Schulte, he would fight, score, he was entertaining and he was a fan favourite and remains so today.  In year five there was Angelstad.  He had his critics but he was unpredictable and entertaining when allowed to play his physical role.  Certainly no team would take liberties with us. In season six there was Theo, the most talented player we’ve seen, a short fuse and one that entertained in every single game and always brought with him a talking point.  Season seven is where we’re at now and it seems like we really lack a character players.  Someone who wouldn’t stand for us getting rolled over 8-0 to our league challengers without some sort of fight.

WHAT NOW?

Changes.  As far as I’m aware you can release and sign players right up until the start of the playoffs, and while something like that has its flaws the Giants should take full advantage of it and change things up.  No one player is playing awful but as a team the confidence is gone and they just aren’t playing together.  It’s hard to pin-point.  For the first few months they score for fun, play like the leagues best team, even beat the Blaze 3-0 at home.  The last two months it’s been poor form and inconsistency, yet it’s the same starting line-up and same man behind the bench so the fans find it hard to figure out where the problems certainly started.  Their only answer is that a problem exists and needs changing.

Giants-History.com 3 stars:
1st Star: Marc Levers
2nd Star: Graeme Walton
3rd Star: Roman Gavalier

Category: Game Recaps (06-07) » |

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