There’s plenty more hockey to be played this season says David Goodwin
Belfast Giants captain is confident that with plenty of games to be played in the season that no one should be counting them out.
Indeed, all doubters and doom-sayers be warned, the Giants will pushing to retain both cup and league, and they have every intention of adding the play-off trophy too.
Looking back at the Manchester double header, Goodwin said: “Getting three out of the four points which were available last weekend against Manchester was great.
“Anyone can look at the league this season and see that there is a lot of parity between all of the teams.
“Everyone is better everyone else, so on the one hand we are happy to have got those points.
“But on the other hand we know that we need to play much more consistently, we know that we are going to need to generate a little more offence on five-on-five.
“So there was a little bit of positive alongside some negative.
“Sometimes were are very happy with where we are. Then at other times Keefer is losing his mind with us.”
Goodwin agrees that the league is going to be a hard fought matter between all teams this season.
He said: “This league is so tough this season. It hasn’t been like this for a number of years.
“A whole season can be an eighth month grind, and that is no different this season too.
“We need to extract as much positives as we can as a team from our situation. If you do that, it will all you to move forward in a season.
“I think that the teams who are able to take the rough with the smooth and stay positive on each night, they are going to be the teams that are going to be successful.
“And that’s something that the Giants are very focused on doing this season.”
Goodwin believes that the Storm are due credit for their success so far this year.
He explained: “They are really great club. They have some good players on their roster.
“But I would say what got them to where they are in the league is that they work hard and they compete hard right from the first puck drop.
“They are also a very physical team, they make it hard on opponents, that has to be one of biggest assets.
“Their coach Cam Critchlow has done a great job in his recruitment and it is definitely paying of for the Storm.”
Goodwin agrees scoring six unanswered goals in a final period against the Storm last Friday does not happen often in hockey.
He said: “To be honest we didn’t think they were dominating us, we were playing well those first two periods. It was just that we weren’t scoring those chances.
“We felt that if we kept playing that way that eventually the puck who fall our way and go into the net.
“That’s what happened in the opening minute of the final period, once Kawaguchi's goal went in, the floodgates opened for us.
“That goal allowed us to play with confidence and of course that led to the other five goals.”
He added: “We worked hard and when we got those opportunities in the third period we made sure to score them. To get the offence firing on all cylinders like we were doing last Friday it felt really good.”
Goodwin is looking forward to another busy weekend of games, first up with the Coventry Blaze on Friday.
He said: “I have no doubt that Coventry will play a hard game on Friday, they have some very good players on their team.
“And I have no doubt that some of those old Giants players who had made the move to Coventry will be wanting to put in a good performance against us.”
He agrees Kevin Moore has put together another solid Blaze team this season: “They have shown already this year that they have a good squad who play well. They can take points of teams.
“We know that we are going to need to have a good week of practice to ensure we have a good performance against them.”
On Sunday the Giants travelled to Guildford and they will be eyeing a little revenge says Goodwin.
He said: “We owe Guildford a tough game after the last encounter.
“We weren’t overly happy with how that game went, so we want to make sure that we get a little of revenge against the Flames on Sunday.”
Goodwin also paid tributes to teammates Ciaran Long and Ben Lake who both reached their 350 games with the Giants, and have now exceeded that number.
Goodwin said: “They are both great players to be on the team with, they are very valuable to the Giants as a whole and bring with them such a wealth of experience, so I was delighted when they both got to mark their 350 game with the Giants.
“And they are even better people of the ice too, I am honoured to be their good friend and I look forward to many more games with them.”
The Giants will be missing forward Scott Conway for the Friday game against Coventry after he was had a one game suspension by DOPS after using “his leg to dangerously trip” Manchester Storm defenceman Nick Welsh, knocking him backwards into the ice. Conway was also fined for the incident.