Week 3 Previews:
GAME 1- Haya vs Sabr:
Welcome to the show Haya! Haya eager to finally start their season sees them squaring off against a hungry Sabr team searching desperately for their first win. This is an interesting matchup where on one side you have a team that could be experiencing off-season rust and on the other side there is a team trying to develop some chemistry after being blown out in two straight games. For Sabr, they simply need more from their rookie goaltender, Imran Merchant. For sure he has the raw skills and potential but he needs to develop confidence in himself after a rough start to his I-slam career. However, this is not to absolve the rest of the Sabr team as it has become evident they need to be better in protecting their goaltender. Currently, they rank third overall in shots against, so they really haven’t made it easy for Imran to transition smoothly into the league. This defensive core of Sadat Malik, Luqman Arshad and Naiem Malik will be in tough as Haya has a dangerous offensive threat of Hisham Ali, Aazar Zafar, Huzaifa Manjra and Mehmed Rizanovic. What will be critical for Sabr is to try to catch Haya off guard early in the game and make the game as uncomfortable for a team playing their first game. If Haya’s netminder Khalid Mufti is able to keep the game close in the first half expect Haya to eventually run away with this game.
GAME 2- Emaan vs Ikhlas:
Each team is trying to bounce back from Week 2 defeats. For Ikhlas, similar to Sabr they find themselves down 0-2. Their situation is different, there seems to be no issue with their goaltender Rahil Ahmed as he has kept them in games while being peppered with shots. Unfortunately he can’t score goals. The forwards for Ikhlas haven’t produced much and their defense hasn’t protected their house. Early pre-season previews predicted this team will have difficulties scoring. However the two games they played were against early season favourites of Ihsan and Yaqeen. Perhaps things will change facing off against Emaan who also give up a lot of shots (2nd highest just after Ikhlas). For Emaan, they give up a lot of shots and are also having a hard time generating offense; last week they only had 5 shots on net in the 2nd half. At the moment only Emaan’s Zaid Toorawa and Umair Awan seems to be driving the team bus scoring in 2 straight games. This is quite surprising because out of all the teams Emaan seems to have the greatest depth upfront. With players like Ali Murtaza, Furqan Salam, Waqar Khan, Wakaaz Khan, Adeel Awan and Jibraan Salam, it was expected that this team would be an offensive juggernaut and for the scoring to be more distributed for Emaan. The key for Emaan will try to use their depth upfront and try to break down Ikhlas as the game progresses. Likewise, Ikhlas probably should have a similar game plan and take advantage of the fact that Emaan is among the leaders in shots against and try for once playing with a lead. Both teams need to come in with the mindset that, - “I missed 100 % of shots I didn’t take”.
GAME 3- Yaqeen vs Shukr
Yaqeen has been steam rolling the competition; they simply don’t make any mistakes. Out of all the teams we seen so far (Note- Haya hasn’t played), Yaqeen appears to be the most well-rounded. Yaqeen’s Arsal Mian, Sajid Ayubi are 1 & 2 in scoring, Humza Chaudhry leads the league in goals scored & Faraaz Alvi is top five in goals scored and Yusuf Kapoor is quietly putting together a solid season. Shukr also comes in hot or do they? They doubled up on Sabr 6 to 3 in Week 2. But is this game an outlier that just skewed and padded stats in their favour? What I will say is they did not look too good in the 2nd half when Sabr was able to claw their way back into their game and create a sense of anxiety on Shukr’s bench. To be fair to Shukr was this the case where they were so dominant in the first half and just let their foot off the gas to gave Sabr an opportunity to make a game out of it? We will get a better sense of this Shukr team after this game. However, considering how Yaqeen has played thus far, in my honest opinion, I just don’t see any scenario of Shukr winning this game. Not to say it can’t happen, unfair to Haya, but at the moment Yaqeen (along with Ihsan) seem to be separating themselves from the rest of the pack.
Yaqeen has been steam rolling the competition; they simply don’t make any mistakes. Out of all the teams we seen so far (Note- Haya hasn’t played), Yaqeen appears to be the most well-rounded. Yaqeen’s Arsal Mian, Sajid Ayubi are 1 & 2 in scoring, Humza Chaudhry leads the league in goals scored & Faraaz Alvi is top five in goals scored and Yusuf Kapoor is quietly putting together a solid season. Shukr also comes in hot or do they? They doubled up on Sabr 6 to 3 in Week 2. But is this game an outlier that just skewed and padded stats in their favour? What I will say is they did not look too good in the 2nd half when Sabr was able to claw their way back into their game and create a sense of anxiety on Shukr’s bench. To be fair to Shukr was this the case where they were so dominant in the first half and just let their foot off the gas to gave Sabr an opportunity to make a game out of it? We will get a better sense of this Shukr team after this game. However, considering how Yaqeen has played thus far, in my honest opinion, I just don’t see any scenario of Shukr winning this game. Not to say it can’t happen, unfair to Haya, but at the moment Yaqeen (along with Ihsan) seem to be separating themselves from the rest of the pack.
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