First Blood Friday: We move from ‘Frantic Friday’ to ‘First Blood Friday’. Either Haya or Shukr will be crowned the Fall-2017 I-Slam Hockey Champions. Congratulations to both of these teams for making it this far. They both managed to build chemistry with other brothers for the most part haven’t had a chance to play with. As a group of strangers, you were forced to go through the grind of the regular season together. These two were the best amongst the four other teams from learning from their failures. Now there is just one step left from attaining what you have been chasing these past four months: The I-Slam Cup. Tonight, you can’t win the championship trophy, in fact it won’t even be at the arena. However, what you can do is improve your odds in this two-week battle and send a message to the last remaining obstacle in your way. You might not be able to win the championship tonight, but with a loss, your team might not be able to recover by ‘Championship Friday’. Who draws first blood?
9:00 PM- Haya (3) vs Shukr (4): Regular Season series tied 1-1.
September 29th, 2017: Haya won 2-1. Furqan Salam (Haya) scored both goals in the first half as Haya held on for dear life being outshot 27 to 11 for the game. Credit for this victory has to go to Kaunain Saiyed (Haya) who only surrender a goal from Dawood Ciombor (Shukr) on a power play.
Notable absences from this game were Nauman Abbasi (Shukr) and Nadeem Faqiri (Haya). Fair questions to mull over: does Salam get those goals if Abbasi there? Faqiri would have had an effect on the outcome of this game…but how much of an impact? Well he is the reason why his team is in the finals (scoring the shootout winner against Emaan last week), so he has shown he can come up clutch in the big moments.
Three stars of this game: 1st: Kaunain Saiyed - 26 saves; 2nd: Furqan Salam - 2 goals; 3rd: Dawood Ciombor - 1 goal.
By the way here is Waqar Khan’s post game interview.
November 10th, 2017: Shukr won 4-3. Again, Shukr outshoots Haya, but this time the spread is by a closer margin, 20-16. Furqan Salam continues his dominance over Shukr and opened the scoring while his team was short-handed. Afterwards, just like he did on September 29th, Dawood Ciombor scored a goal on a powerplay to end the 1st half 1-1. Shukr was able to get to Saiyed this go around as Humza Ali (Shukr) and Kashif Taqiuddin (Shukr) found the back of the net. Haya would reply via an unlikely suspect, Jawad Majeed. As this game moved along both penalty boxes started to fill up. This would be the downfall for Haya as Ibrahim Hindy (Shukr) would make them pay with a power play goal. Waqar Khan (Haya) would respond late for his team, but it was not enough as Shukr emerged victorious this time around.
Notable absences from this game were Khalid Mufti (Shukr), Mohammed Hamoud (Shukr) and Salman Khalid (Haya). Food for thought: you got to think if Salman Khalid played this game his team would have been more disciplined… as a result… does Shukr get those two power play goals and come away with this victory? On the flip side Mufti and Hamoud are significant pieces for Shukr and would have made things more difficult for Haya on this night.
Three stars of this game: 1st: Ibrahim Hindy (Shukr) - 1G 2A; 2nd: Salman Alvi (Haya) - 2A; 3rd: Kashif Taqiuddin (Shukr) - 1G
Assessing these teams:
Goals for: Haya: 24 vs Shukr: 20
Goals Against: Haya: 25 vs Shukr: 15
Shots Allowed: Haya: 195 vs Shukr: 156
Top Goals Scorer: Haya - Furqan Salam (10) vs Shukr - Dawood Ciombor (5)
Points Leader: Haya - Furqan Salam (11) vs Shukr - Humza Ali (11)
Insider Analysis:
Offense: We give the edge to Haya. They have the guy who scored the most goals this season. If he is able to continue to produce and in anticipation of Waqar Khan being able to turn back the clock to the Spring of 2017 where he won the overall scoring title, it will be a long series for Shukr.
Defense: We give the edge to Shukr. Pretty much Nauman Abassi and Salman Khalid cancel each other out. You would think this would suggest that Haya would have the advantage with Junaid Mohammad patrolling the blue-line. However, we feel that the back-checking of Humza Ali will ultimately give Shukr the upper-hand and may very well determine the winner of this serious if Haya as a team cannot match his effort.
Goaltending: This one is a tricky one. Both goalies on Frantic Friday were superb. We are nit-picking here but Kaunain Saiyed did look a bit nervous especially in the early parts of the game last week against Emaan. But hey, give him credit for recovering and playing through the nerves. On the other side Khalid Mufti was a stud for his team, posting back to back shutouts. With this in mind, goaltending is a streaky position, you will have your good moments and you will have your bad moments… right now Mufti is red-hot. Not to mention he sported better numbers than his counterpart during the regular season. We give the edge to Shukr.
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