Storm and Blaze battle to lead chasing pack

Photo: Mark Ferris

Thursday night action in the 2021 Elite Series sees the Manchester Storm as home team against the Coventry Blaze in Game 13.

With half of the regular season matches now played, it's Manchester who head the chasing pack behind Sheffield. Coventry, however, are just a point behind the Storm and are looking for their first win in the series over a team other than Nottingham.

Storm picked up a point on Wednesday night against the Panthers in a game that they were frustrated to lose, conceding an equaliser in the last five minutes and then being on the wrong end of an overtime winner. The penalty kill is an area causing the team trouble at the moment - 60% efficiency is the series' lowest by some margin, and two of the Panthers' goals yesterday came with an extra skater.

Coventry have both the strongest powerplay in the tournament at 31.58%, and best penalty kill at 85.71%. Where the Blaze have struggled is giving up an average of over 40 shots a game. Despite Shane Owen leading the series with 91.6% of shots saved, the Blaze are still conceding an average of 3.8 goals per game. At the other end, Tristan Keck jointly leads the series with six goals.

Team news
Sam Gospel will get his first start of the series in net for the Storm tonight. Having welcomed back Andreas Klavestad on Wednesday, manchester are at full strength aside from goalie Stephen Murphy.

Coventry have no major concerns ahead of this game, although Paul Swindlehurst remains sidelined. Alex Forbes moved back to defense earlier this week and is expected to stay on the blueline in tonight's line-up as well.