The Sheffield Steelers' riddle - can the scorers start to score again?
How does he get his top line scoring?
Sheffield’s senior imports have simply not produced the goods enough, in terms of goals.
Pre-season, if anybody had said Mathieu Roy would be 39th top scorer in the Elite League by March, they would have been laughed at.
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Hide AdThe 31-year-old French Canadian has scored 20 goals in 46 League games - one behind Matt Marquardt who was brought in as a third line left winger.
Centre Tim Wallace - who has 100 NHL appearances under his belt - has not produced anything like the goals that were expected of him. He’s netted six in 57 domestic games.
Andreas Valdix, Levi Nelson and Colton Fretter - who have all performed miracles for Steelers in the past - will doubtless have wanted to have produced more than they have in the 2017-18 season.
So can this team suddenly find their goal touch, clock up some wins in the final League run-in, and engineer another Play Off victory that will save the season again?
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Hide AdThompson is not a coach to publicly vilify his players, individually.
But he told The Star: “We have not enjoyed the first line scoring of Belfast Giants and Cardiff Devils. They have had consistent producers.
“We have to win matches by committee - four or five guys have to chip in. This is not just about Fretter and Roy - there are guys paid to score goals and its not happened when we’ve need it.”
Thompson said his team were “soft” around Braehead Clan’s net in last Sunday’s 5-2 reverse, a game that saw all the senior offensive imports neutralised.
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Hide AdSteelers, a fifth-placed team in the EIHL standings, are the fifth-placed team in terms of League firepower.
And that has got to change or Sheffield Arena will be a trophy-free zone.
*Sheffield’s top ‘plus-minus’ players are both defencemen - Joonas Ronnberg and Davey Phillips.