Providing there are no major changes to the game sheets this week we have our quarter finals set for game week 27. Let’s preview one game to see who to look out for.
Francesco Storm v Hard to Yandle
“Francesco Storm” are currently 25th in the league and are going to play this season’s FHL UK Cup finalists “Hard to Yandle” who were the second highest scorers of the week with 550.5 points. If we look at who is the form team at the moment, “Hard to Yandle” has a 334 point average over the last five weeks while “Francesco Storm” are averaging 316 points.
Our preview is based upon the team selections on gameweek 26, so we don’t know what trades will be made before the deadline on Tuesday night. In our weekly scores post we previewed the upcoming gameweek where we have Guildford and Coventry playing three times and Glasgow having a week off. All the other teams play twice.
In goal it appears to be advantage for “Francesco Storm” as they have the only guaranteed starter in Matt Greenfield. The Steelers number one should play both games although they are against Belfast and Guildford. Their second goalie is Jackson Whistle who has seen his playing time decrease lately but potentially might be in goal in Manchester on Sunday. “Hard to Yandle” may have a problem in goal with Manchester Storm back-up James Downie unlikely to get any playing time and Paavo Holsa now splitting time in goal with new signing Miklos Rajna. With Coventry having three games this week Holsa should play at least one game but it appears to be advantage “Francesco Storm”.
You can probably imagine that in defence we see a lot of familiar names across both teams. Marcus Crawford, Gabe Bast, Matt Petgrave and Bradley Lalonde are amongst the top scorers in the game and are in both teams, so we need to look at who else is in there as a difference maker. For “Francesco Storm” we have Jordan Klimek and Brady Norrish as their “3rd defence pair”, whereas “Hard to Yandle” have Brayden Sherbinin and Andrew McLean. Here we have advantage “Francesco Storm” again just looking at the fixtures as they have two players who have three games this week, while Andrew McLean doesn’t have a game for “Hard to Yandle”. Klimek and Norrish aren’t exactly lighting up the game sheets in the same way Sherbinin is but when they have three times the number of games you’d bank on them scoring more points.
Up front we don’t have as many players in common with league top scorer Scott Conway, Elijiah Barriga and Cole Sanford. Interestingly “Francesco Storm” have three Dundee forwards in their team with Ben Sokay and Philippe Sanche. Dundee have been struggling but do have two home games this week against Guildford and Nottingham. Rounding out their forward lines are Brett Ferguson, John Curran, Marc-Olivier Vallerand and Jordan Kelsall. Ferguson, Vallerand and Curran are putting up some steady points but it hasn’t been spectacular lately.
For “Hard to Yandle” they have Ryan Tait and Daniel Tedesco from Guildford’s top line who have both been pretty consistent lately. David Goodwin has been putting up points along with the rest of the Belfast team and as he plays with Scott Conway they will likely compliment each other. Sheffield’s Brandon Whistle is one of the best value pick-ups in the game but he and Janne Kivilahti are unlikely to put up a lot of points in a game week. The difference maker though could be Anthony DeLuca who can be a very up and down as evidenced by his 79.0 points in game week 24 but only averaging 17.5 points over the last six game weeks. We think it’s slight advantage to “Hard to Yandle” up front as they have two thirds of the Belfast and Guildford (who play three times) top scoring lines plus a wildcard in DeLuca.
Overall it looks like it could be close but we make “Francesco Storm” the favourite at the moment. However we don’t know how many trades each team has available and if they will make any. Plus we have captain picks which could make a big difference. Would you play safe and keep Scott Conway as captain or would you try and take advantage of Guildford playing three times and pick one of their forwards?
Good luck to both teams and we will review who makes it through next week.
