The Belfast Giants are into the final throws of the 2010/11 Elite League seasons and it has reached desperation stages. Actually, it has reached that horrible stage were you now desperately require the opposition to drop points in order for you to win the championship. One look at the league table and there is reason to be optimistic that it could happen. Both Belfast and Sheffield have three games remaining and the Giants trail by just the one point, but flick up the fixture list and the pessimism quickly begins to set in.

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I got the recent edition of the Elite Stats Weekly e-mail into my inbox this evening which is packed full of information on teams and players across the Elite League. I had a skim through and even used some of the numbers to help me get the site back up-to-date but also seen some interesting statistics that I had a closer look at.

Colin Shields is leading the Elite League in points scoring with 81 in total, five ahead of Jade Galbraith (the leagues primary set-up man with 57 assists in 49 games) of Nottingham and nine up on Greg Chambers of Coventry. Shields is on a torrid pace and if he keeps up the current rate of scoring he should finish the regular season having played 64 games and scoring 45 goals and 101 points, smashing any previous Giants records for goals and points in a season. He is second in goal scoring with 36 to Coventry’s Luke Fulghum who sits on 40 goals.

Jeff Szwez is another Giants player leading a category with six short handed goals, one ahead of Jeff Legue of Sheffield. David Clarke of Nottingham leads the league in powerplay goals with 14. Evan Cheverie is Mr. Clutch for the Giants with five game winning goals – Adam Calder leads with eight.

Then there is the physical side of the game with penalty minutes and Sean McMorrow of the Giants leads that category also with a massive 344 in total, 40 ahead of Brad Voth of Cardiff who sits on 314. Third place is ex-Giant Jeff Hutchins all the way down on 197. At this current pace Sean McMorrow looks set to hit 458 penalty minutes for the year which is a staggering number considering the all-time record by a Giants player in a season is currently Paxton Schulte with 424 from 2003/04.

Between the pipes the Giants come out top again through Stephen Murphy who leads the league in save percentage with a total of .922 ahead of Peter Hirsch of Coventry on .919 and Michel Robinson of Newcastle on .914. Murphy also leads in goals against average with 2.30 ahead of Kevin St. Pierre of Nottingham on 2.80 and ex-Giants tender, Stevie Lyle now of Cardiff on 2.82.

So what about team stats?

Ask any Giants fan and they’ll tell you the penalty killing is pretty good but the powerplay is awful and the stats don’t lie. The Giants have the third worst powerplay in the Elite League with a 17% hit rate compared to the leagues best of 23.4% from Sheffield. It’s surprising that considering the Giants are actually second in the standings with Sheffield second last. Shorthanded the Giants are much stronger coming in second best in the league on 83.9% behind Sheffield who sit on 84.4%. Very very strange Sheffield leading both powerplay and shorthanded categories yet struggling so much in the standings overall.

In goals per game the Giants are always high on the charts. Ever since the teams inception in 2000/01 the team have always been known as an offence first team and one that has been high up, if not leading, the goals per game ratio. This year is no different with the team currently second in goals per game with 3.9, just 0.2 behind Coventry who lead on 4.1 goals per game. At home the Giants are averaging an impressive 4.5 goals per game - not bad from a Giants team who some fans believe are lacking up front.. For what it is worth the Stingrays bring up the rear with a poor 2.5 goals per game. The Giants also lead the shots on goal totals with an average of 37.6 per game and sit second last in penalty minutes per game with 22.7 dispelling theories that the referees in the league are anti-Giants or that the team are ill-disciplined.

Considering some of the great players the Giants have had take to the ice over the years it might come as a surprise to some to hear that Colin Shields currently sits 8th in the all-time Giants points scoring list. But thats the facts and off the back of an outstanding season so far this year he only looks set to climb the charts further. Shields has currently scored 36 points from 23 points and with 39 guaranteed games in the league and challenge cup to go before the end of the regular season and with Shields currently averaging 1.57 points per game it would be fair to assume that if he stays healthy Shields will score a further 61 points. Should he do so that would move him to 242 points putting him just 3 points shy of Jason Ruff. With a couple of playoff games likely it wouldn’t be unrealistic to think Colin could well move into second all-time in points scored for the Giants.

The all-time leader is George Awada on 297 points but he is done for the year with no guarantees whether he will be back in 2010/11 or not. Colin Shields may have flown under the radar a little in his first season with the Giants thanks to Theo Fleury, Ed Courtenay and Jason Ruff all being in the line-up but he has continually put up the points and has now emerged as not only one of the Giants best players but one of their best leaders.

Below is a look at the top 10 points scorers in Giants History:

NO.  PLAYER            POS     GP     G     A   Pts   PIM   P/GP
----------------------------------------------------------------
41   George Awada      RW     307   137   160   297   508   0.97
17   Jason Ruff        LW     193   100   145   245   366   1.27
44   Todd Kelman       D      417    73   141   214   496   0.51
 4   Shane Johnson     D      463    54   140   194   682   0.42
22   Curtis Bowen      C/LW   219    84   103   187   365   0.85
72   Ed Courtenay      RW     124    58   129   187   176   1.51
27   Paxton Schulte    LW     233    81   101   182   975   0.78
18   Colin Shields     C      132    67   114   181    56   1.37
11   Colin Ward        RW     233    84    93   177   172   0.76
39   Curtis Huppe      LW     144    86    87   173   162   1.20

It is scary to think that the Elite League is going into its 7th season in a few weeks time. It only seems like a few years ago that the ISL was wrapping up, were were panicking about the future of our team and then we were getting used to the fact that British born players would be all over the ice, including boys from Belfast. It has been quite a run for the EIHL which has turned out to be much more successful overall than the ISL was and it has created many memories and historic moments for many teams. To celebrate some of the leagues history the EIHL yesterday released some of its all-time stats including points, goals, assists and penalty minutes. It makes for good reading but none of the names that make the list are a big shock. Here is a look at the top man in each category and then a further, more in depth look, at the goal scoring category.

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