Lee Valley Lions

Streatham Redskins

Goals

Penalties

Lee Valley Lions

Streatham Redskins

Additional Comments:

The Lions have had a very mixed season to date and one can ever be sure what team will turn up on the night. Hopes were high that the Lions who had convincingly beat Bracknell recently, and earlier in the season secured the win against Basingstoke, would be on hand to at least give Streatham a run for their money. Unfortunately it was not to be.

The evening did not get off to the best of starts as the senior coach, Sergey Smolenko, was delayed due to illness. After a desperate dash across London Sergey eventually arrived to see the start of the second period. Coach Ian Prince assisted by Paul Ranby was left to run the lines until Sergey’s arrival.

Streatham started the game in a fast and hard-hitting fashion and it was clear that they intended to stamp authority on the game from the off. George Alley in net for the Lions did well to see off a flurry of shots in the first few minutes as on occasions the Lions’ defence seemed to evaporate in front of Streatham’s continuous attacks into the Lions’ zone. However, against the run of play, it was the Lions who opened the scoring at 3:53, following some slick passes from Stas Prokofiev to Michael Jacobs and finally onto the stick of Michael Ranby to make it one up to the Lions.

Ranby’s goal temporarily lifted the Lions and it looked for a minute or two as though Streatham might have to make a fight of it. Before long, however, Streatham were back in charge and although the Lions’ defence managed to repeatedly see off attacks and gain possession in their defensive zone the passes up the ice to the Lions’ forwards were more often than not intercepted by an opposing player. Such an occasion saw Streatham’s Milan Sotak gain possession and comfortably carve through the Lions’ defence to make it one apiece at 5:09. Streatham scored again at 11:18 courtesy of Joe Johnston on the power play, as Alastair Band sat out a 2+10 check from behind call.

Shortly afterwards the Lions were given the opportunity to level things up again when Jacobs took a penalty shot for the Lions following a tripping call on Streatham as the visitors made a rare close-up attack on the Streatham net. Under pressure Jacobs decided to skate straight at Jonathan Sylvester in net and the shot was comfortably saved. The period ended with Streatham scoring their third at 18:19, again through Sotak.

The second period saw much of the same as the first. Streatham were very quick to close down any rare attacks by the Lions and too often the Lions’ forwards were limited to taking long-range speculative shots, seemingly unable to piece together effective crashes on the opposition net. The end of the second saw Streatham leading by 7 goals to 2 with the only bright spot for the Lions being Prokofiev, Ranby and Jacobs combining again to preserve some dignity with an even-handed goal at 30:16.

The third period at best was only ever going to be a damage limitation exercise for the Lions but rather than rally round for a fight back there were clearly signs of strain on the Lions’ bench and frustration seemed unfortunately to have its effect on team adhesion. The Lions gained a consolation third goal in the period as once more the line of Prokofiev, Ranby and Jacobs gave travelling supporters some relief. At 49:56 the Lions swapped George Alley in net for Andrew Boot after Alley had done a reasonable job in difficult circumstances. By this stage the game was well and truly out of reach for the Lions but young Boot did well to come on cold and face 8 shots in the closing minutes. The third period ended with Streatham very comfortable winners at 10 goals to 3.

Overall not the Lion’s finest hour and Sergey might well with hindsight wished he had stayed at home. Accepting that Streatham are a class act Lee Valley did not do themselves justice. There were few encouraging team moments and a few individual hard-working performances but the Lions were found lacking as a team. The bottom line, however, is that without thinking and playing as a team when the going gets tough it will be hard to capitalise further on the undoubted improvements made by the Lions this year.

Referee was Ross, Linesmen were Hames and Holtham.

Thanks to Deryk Beeson for writing this match report.