Coach’s Report: Rampage vs. Adelaide Avalanche – Round 5

We win or we learn. That’s the message I have given our team after last weekend’s mixed results.

It would be easy to look at the 6-1 result from last week and panic, thinking we need to completely change everything we have been working on over the past few months. The reality is, we had an off night. The Ducks made some very good adjustments between games and executed their game plan much better than we did. That being said we still had our chances and there was periods of good play, but we failed to capitalise on what little opportunities we created and it showed in the score line.

This weekend brings a new challenge. The Avalanche continue to show they are fast, physical and most importantly have depth. They are a very easy team for us to get excited to play agains. They play a good, hard brand of hockey much like we do and will take a hit if it means creating an opportunity rather than carry on with garbage behind the play so we need to be prepared to work equally as hard off the puck as we do on it.

The last time we played the Avalanche, the games were razor close and quite honestly could have gone either way. 

In my opinion Adelaide has the biggest home ice advantage in the league. The surface is a little bumpy, it’s tight and the benches can be difficult to navigate if you’re not on your game. We will most definitely need to be at our best to stand any chance at taking some points away from them at home.

Much of the press leading up to this game has been about our ‘2 headed monster’ Sobchak and McTaggart and how dangerous they are when they are on the ice together. I feel we have a lot more to offer than just these two players and I’m looking at the rest of line up to step up this weekend and prove to not only Adelaide, but the rest of the league that we have scoring from top to bottom.

I’m excited, the players are pumped to bounce back after last Sunday and I’m sure the fans around the league will be watching this one closely.

Line up for this weekend:

• Derry Adler
• Harley Anderson (C)
• Josh Anderson (A)
• Jon Bale 
• Anthony Barnes
• Marco Bertossa 
• Jack Connor
• Luca D’Arsie (G)
• Darryl Dunsford
• Nick Jones
• Jordan McTaggart 
• Nick Novysedlak (G)
• Jordan Ricketts
• Anthony Santilli 
• Jordan Smith
• Owen Sobchak
• Stefan Speck (A)