It is early days, but it´ll be a pitch dark Christmas if this is what is ahead. The line combos not working, too many defensive players injured and no luck whatsoever do not make prospects bright.
Again our inefficiency, rather than anything else, made the opposing goalie look like a world champion. As I´ve made a promise not to criticise the players after only seeing two home games I won´t tell our star acqusition to piss off, but he would really deserve it.
I never quite understood what everybody were moaning about last year, but I´ve seen it all now - this guy is not even trying !
All the potential of Caloun and J.Ruutu and their experience of playing together goes down the drains if we don´t have a center that can match their abilities and skill with hard work and on the spot passes.
HIFK had several reserve players on the ice today, but nevertheless, today´s performance was poor.
I was a little bit ashamed getting criticism for my column in early August saying the acqusitions weren´t good enough - let´s hope I´m still wrong.
What we got right now is: one solid defenseman (#77), one getting in shape (#3) and two promising guys (#37),(#8), but after them nothing if Kultanen (#21) can´t play with his finger broken. Offensively, I have to repeat myself, the two scoring lines are nowhere near ready to take on the better teams (TPS away on Thursday and Jokerit on Saturday) and the Sihvonen line looked tired today. The 4th line from Thursday was split up so basically we´ve got one ok line at the moment. This means an early adieu in the EHL the day after tomorrow vs. Frankfurt.
My suggestions are :
1st line: Caloun-Kalto-J.Ruutu
2nd Kortelainen-Sihvonen-Hurme
3rd Kuhta-Borsato-Tuomainen
4th Laaksonen-Ahonen-Hagman
You can guess for yourself who´s missing !
Stars:
#1 Brian Rafalski
#2 Jani Nikko
#3 Jan Lundell