RYAN FINNERTY is remaining bullish about the trajectory of Braehead Clan's season on the back of another disappointing night for the Glasgow club.
A team built for an Elite League title challenge goes into this weekend against Edinburgh Capitals in eighth place in the table, while their frustration was further compounded on Thursday night as a late goal held them to a 3-3 draw in the first leg of their Challenge Cup quarter-final against Nottingham Panthers.
Finnerty is now into his fourth season as Clan head coach and has presided over the best years of the club's short existence.
It is perhaps this fact that heightens the frustration among supporters and the organisation itself that progress has been far from straightforward this time.
The Canadian has been honest all season about the plight of his team and was frank again when asked about how he envisages the fate of his team for the remainder of the campaign.
"It's my fourth season here and it reminds me of my first year here when I was just struggling to get consistency," he told HeraldSport.
"We had a good group of guys who brought some good stuff together. This year their are seven or eight other teams who are the same.
"Apart from Cardiff or Sheffield nobody is running on streaks.
"For our standard and where we've been, it's absolutely not a lot of fun to be where we are. We're not going to end up there, I've got too much confidence in myself and too much confidence in the team. We're not going to end up down there.
"We have a positive group. We understand the fans' frustration but at the same time we block the negativity out. We're too good and too cocky to get down over something right now, I know this group is going to climb.
"I've been doing this for a long time and typically I don't lose. This team will find it's way."
The stop-start nature of Braehead's season was initially put down to a large turnover of players, primarily from North America, adjusting to the European game. Spending the entire month out of Braehead Arena couldn't have helped either.
Yet on their return to home ice last Saturday a poor display saw them crumble in front of a large and expectant home crowd to a 6-4 Dundee Stars defeat. A wrong that was righted on Tayside the following night with a 6-3 win.
"We just want to put a performance on and give our fans something to get behind," said Finnerty ahead of tonight's game with the Edinburgh Capitals in Glasgow.
"The Dundee game last week was embarrassing. Everyone knew that, I didn't even speak after the game. I was focusing on the team and doing a debrief because I felt that was more important.
"Those kind of nights we can't afford to have. We were on the road for six weeks and came back to that level was embarrassing and utterly surprising.
"We then go to Dundee and have a great game. It's just Jekyll and Hyde, Jekyll and Hyde, but we'll come back out of this and pushing at the top end of the table.
"I'm confident in myself and confident in the team."
Reflecting on the 3-3 draw with Nottingham on Thursday, Finnerty was relaxed about the prospect of travelling south next Wednesday not carrying a lead.
He added: "We have an opportunity to just go down there and play a hockey game. Which is quite refreshing, it's a bit different for the guys coming in to an aggregate game.
"We're not football players and they can weigh on your mind more than you should. It's a chance to go and win a hockey game and move on.
"We have been good on the road, we're confident on the road, and we just want to string some good games together at home to get our fans behind us."
While Braehead Clan host Edinburgh Capitals, Dundee Stars go to Coventry Blaze and the Manchester Storm will travel to Kirkcaldy for a meeting with the Fife Flyers
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here