Release from 18.12.2024

Dylan Stanley: "We are in the fight" – Confidence despite 13th Place

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The Pioneers Vorarlberg are currently in last place in the win2day ICE Hockey League and are ten points behind the Top-10 and the pre-playoff places. Despite the current deficit and various challenges, Head Coach Dylan Stanley remains optimistic: "Our goal was to stay in the fight, and we are." With discipline, structured play, and a bit more luck in front of the net, the Canadian coach believes a comeback is possible, as he said in an interview. This Wednesday, the Vorarlberg team will face second-placed HCB Südtirol Alperia at home (19:30/live.ice.hockey).

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Despite only 19 points from 27 games and a 10-point gap to the 10th-placed Pustertal, Dylan Stanley remains confident: "Well, obviously it’s nice to have teams underneath you than to be at the bottom. But at the same time we are in the fight and that was our goal to make sure we’re in the fight.“ Despite some challenges, such as injuries and the fact that they were only able to play two games of the season with the full team, Stanley emphasizes: “The last couple games we put together. That was our best performance on the road, I think over 120 minutes we deserve to win both games and if we continue to do that, then we’ll make the fight interesting come the second half of the regular season.“ Last weekend, the Pioneers first won 3:2/SO in Ljubljana, followed by a narrow 1:2 defeat in Villach just 24 hours later.

One of the major problems this season has been the many narrow losses, often by a single goal or, due to empty-netters, by a two-goal margin. Additionally, the team has struggled offensively: With only 54 goals, they have the weakest offense in the league. Stanley still sees progress, however: „I think we are going to probably reach a record high for how many games we lose by one. The last month we felt the scoring chances we’ve been able to create inside the dots are a lot more”, says Stanley. At the same time, he sees progress in the offensive: “We did make some adjustments. The players reacted to those and did a great job. And so now we’re just waiting for kind of a little bit of luck to go with those net-front chances, and from there those two-one games will definitely change.“

Looking back on last season, which ended as a surprise for the Pioneers with a place in the quarter-finals, the Canadian sees a change in expectations. „It was a great experience, but I think all the positives that came from it also changed expectations, maybe a little too fast. From the outside, I think that was tough for people and fans. And I don’t blame them. If I was sitting in those stands after last year, I would have wanted the exact same thing again this year.“ Despite the setbacks, he remains confident: „Just because it’s not resulting in the scoreboard, we actually think we’re probably playing better hockey than we did last year.“

Another positive aspect is the development of new players: “We have 12 players that have not played in the win2day ICE Hockey League before. It’s been really cool to see their development and adjustments to the league.“ The Canadian particularly highlights the performance of Ramon Schnetzer: “He has definitely proven to be one of the top Austrian defencemen around.“ He also praises the progress made by young players such as Oscar Mayer and Julian Metzler: “Really happy to see what those guys have done.“

The Pioneers continue their win2day ICE Hockey League campaign this Wednesday against second placed HCB Südtirol Alperia (19:30/live.ice.hockey). Although the first two duels of the season were lost, Stanley is optimistic: „They’ve been good hockey games, even over the last two years, we’ve really had some good games against Bolzano that have gone both ways – usually been pretty tight scoring games.“ For the next duel, he demands discipline and hard work from his team: „We’ve got to stick to our structure for 60 minutes and if we do that, sometimes it frustrates a team a little bit.“

The full interview with Dylan Stanley: