I thought the boys were fantastic over the weekend.Although we didn't win in Solent on Saturday, I thought our work ethic and buy in of our systems were excellent and on another day we could have walked out of there with at least a point.Its a tough building to play in and Solent are a very well drilled team who use the home ice advantage brilliantly.I don't see them losing too many games in there own barn,but I felt had we put our couple of breakaway chances away and the shot the hit the pipe goes in we are talking about a totally different result.
We had to play 4 defencemen in there and with Jagger being an import it was tough at times getting him onto the ice as we can only have 1 import on at a time.At times we had to rotate our 3 other British defencemen ,however i thought our Defencemen were outstanding in real challenging circumstances.
As well as having only 4 defencemen we also found ourselves with 8 Forwards after Brad Watchorn was thrown out of the game for a check to the head.For me this was a borderline call and no common sense was used.Brad actually had the puck at the time and his hands came up to protect himself and he ended up on the wrong side of the call.
We pushed in the 3rd period including pulling Ross Miller, but unfortunately we could not capitalise.However the guys put in a fantastic shift and I truly believe performances like that will win us more games than we lose.
What a fantastic game on Sunday back at Oxpens Road.Chelmsford are one of the top teams in this league and even though they were short of a few guys,I don't think we can take anything away from my guys who were fantastic.We were missing 5 guys also, who arguably would have been in our lineup, so for me it was an even contest in that respect.
We had a good start, but didn't seem to really get going after we scored for some reason.Credit Chelmsford who put is on the back foot for long spells in the second period and if it wasn't for Ross Miller we could have found ourselves out of the game.But credit to the boys for hanging in there and keeping the game close, giving us an opportunity to win this game.
I think the big turning point was Brad Watchorn's goal late in the second period.It really gave us a massive momentum swing and going in to the break one goal down enabled us to regroup.We changed our system and just asked the boys to up the work ethic, get more physical and win puck battles.
It was a massive win and something we need to continue as we move forward.The players are doing everything asked of them.We have belief in our systems of play, we work hard, play physical, stick up for one another, fight if needed and we can put the puck in the net. That is the identity i have been trying to install in our guys from day one.We are a new team, but we are slowly getting to where we need to be.If we can play consistently within our identity I believe we will be a very good team in this league.
Finally I would just like to thank the fans for sticking with us. The noise on Sunday was outstanding and myself and the boys really appreciate the support and are all working hard to give you a team to be proud of.
