Who's your money on? - Part 1

By Andrew Birrell

So far this year last year’s league champions have already completed their squad and last year’s runners up the Braehead Clan are not far behind. The Panthers, Devils, Belfast and Blaze are also not far of completion. So the question for today is based on who everyone has signed who is your money on? Firstly let’s look at the champions and 2^nd placed teams the Steelers and the Clan, well the champs now have two new netminders firstly Tyler Plante he is 28 years old, for the USA and has bags of experience 164 games in the WHL, almost 40 games in the ECHL, has played in the Allsvenskan and also sometime in Norway and Italy and his back up this year will be 21 year old Brad Day, he is a Sheffield lad, and played in most of their junior set ups he has also played for the Sheffield ENL team and the EPL Steeldogs, on defence they have retained Cullen Eddy, Ben O’Conner and Rod Sarich, the new boys are Jace Coyle who Paul Thompson coached last year in Aalborg, former Clan player Zach Fitzgerald, Darrell Hay and finally another former Aalborg player Russ Moyer. The Forwards  Steelers have managed to retain most of last year’s guys then new additions are Mike Duco, Levi Nelson and Fredrik Vestberg. Also this year’s Steelers team will be shorter and lighter in weight so do we think they will be good enough to hold on to the title. 

Now last year’s runners up the Braehead Clan, they also have new netminders in Chris Holt the guy has played at the highest levels of the game and will bring a wealth of experience he has played in ECHL, AHL, NHL, KHL, 2 games for team USA and a few other places to, his back up will be former Northern league goalie from the Solway Sharks Gary Russell or "Rusty" as most know him he is a very good goalie and will serve the Clan well. The Clans defence? Well, 3 guys back from last year so far in Scott Aarssen, Jamie Fritsch and Zach Sullivan and there new import D man is Ric Jackman and what a great signing this could be as he has 231 NHL games under his belt. Going forward so far the Clan have retained seven of last year’s guys including the captain Matt Keith, Scott Pitt and Stefan Meyer, there new forwards that have been announced so far are Brendan Brooks Jordan Cownie who is a GB under 20 player, Alex Leavitt and they also acquired Bari Mckenzie from the Dundee Stars. So far this year the Clan are 2 inches shorter and about 5KG’s lighter will this make a difference to how they play as we know Finner likes to play physical so can they maintain their conference form and win it again for a third time , and can they win the league.

So, who is your money on?

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