Scout Report – Week 12 Preview

This season our scouting department will be giving an update prior to the start of each game week to give you all the information you need to get your team top of the standings.

Roster Moves

With the scout being on a road trip last week we have plenty of new signings to catch up with. Most of these are at Fife who have brought in three solid signings who should help make them more competitive and bring that first league win. The first is a familiar name on defence with Simon Després joining after spending the previous two years with Nottingham and Glasgow where he shown that he can put up a few points from the blueline. He is therefore added with a slightly lower value than he was at Glasgow, 6.0M.

Joining him at Fife are Anton Karlsson and David Booth who come from very different backgrounds. Karlsson spent most of his career in his native Sweden until he started to move around Europe over the last four years with some solid production in each stop. He is added at 6.0M as he should spent some time on the top two lines. 41 year old David Booth joins after also playing the last few years across Europe but before that he accumulated a staggering 530 NHL games with 230 points. He has shown that age is no barrier with 10 goals in just 8 games in Hungary last year before dominating in Australia. We think he has enough experience to put up points in the league so he is added at 7.0M.

The last two signings are a returning Brett Ferguson who has joined Cardiff to replace the injured Nolan Yaremko, and Adam Robbins who joins Coventry. Ferguson has been with Guildford for seven years so we know what we are going to get. He is added in at 8.0M and has already made a good start at Cardiff with seven points in five games. Robbins has only had the one full professional season prior to joining Coventry and while points production was fairly low, he did manage to score 9 goals to make his 4.5M an intriguing option.

Who’s Hot?

We haven’t caught up with the top scorers on the season for a while so lets see the current top 10.

Our pick of week 10 was Mitchell Balmas who gave us a solid 35 points to take our average up to 26 for the year.

For week 12 we are going to go with a Manchester player while they have two home games against the 8th and 10th placed teams in the league. Storm defenceman Nick Welsh has 48 points in each of the last two weeks so lets ride the hot hand and stick with him as our pick.

Current average points per week so far – 26 points.

Latest player scores are available on our site –

Upcoming Schedule

We have a straightforward week upcoming with each team playing twice although we start with a bumper Friday night of games.

Eight teams are in action across four fixtures. League leaders Nottingham Panthers welcome Glasgow Clan to the Motorpoint Arena, while Manchester host Fife Flyers at the Storm Shelter. Cardiff and Guildford meet for the first time in league play this season, and Dundee are on home ice against Belfast to round off the night.

Saturday brings three games. It is a huge one at the Utilita Arena where the league-leading Panthers face second-placed Sheffield Steelers, just a week after the teams needed a shootout to separate them in Nottingham. Belfast continue their Scottish road trip in Glasgow, while Manchester are back at home with Coventry Blaze the visitors.

Sunday closes the week with another trio of fixtures. Fife hosting Cardiff gets the day started, with Sheffield travelling to Coventry. Guildford then round out the weekend as they welcome Dundee to the Spectrum.