Week Three - September 26th

Emaan vs Taqwa

10PM

Emaan will face the monster they helped create due to the major trade the two teams consummated during the draft. By lending Taqwa the 2nd overall pick, Emaan allowed the Black Squad to grab Farooq Khan and Ibad Khan to their already star arsenal.

Last year, Emaan found a good deal of success against Taqwa. Taqwa, a team that loves to create high-level skill plays, can get extremely frustrated with Emaan's high-intensity and relentless fore-check game.

They'll need to hope it works again this year as Emaan tries to register their first win.

Player To Watch: Razi Ahmed is emerging as a top defender who is extremely dangerous on the rush. He scored a great short-handed goal last week...look for him to build on that.

Who's Hot: Shaukat Khan has 4 points in the first two game and only really played half of the last game. He turned the game on it's head the moment he arrived.

Sabr vs Ihsan

11PM

The defending champions certainly didn't expect this coming into this season: Searching for their first win of the season in Week 3. Enter Ihsan, a team that Sabr has shown thinly veiled enmity towards. 

After losing their last game of the season last year to Emaan, Sabr GM Yousuf Sowdagar noted his pleasure that the loss contributed to Ihsan's elimination from the playoffs. There's no love lost between these two teams and expect a battle up and down the floor.

One subtext for this game: Sabr felt extremely paranoid that Ihsan would draft goaltender Kaz Akbar and also felt that Akbar was far  superior player to Ali Khwaja, so much so that they passed on some high-skill forwards to draft Akbar 4th overall. Expect Khwaja to try to prove his naysayers wrong.

Player to Watch: Mustafa Alam is another player who feels slighted with the Sabr brass, after being traded from the squad last season. Expect him to bring a high level of energy to the match.

Who's Hot: Omar Sabri's 4 assists (all primary) in his first 2 games is tough to ignore.

Week Two - September 19th

Taqwa V Ihsan - 8PM

Last week's winners will come together for an early chance to claim sole spot of the top spot in the standings for the season. Surprisingly, despite the radical turnover on both teams, the teams ultimately remained loyal to the style of hockey they played last season.

Taqwa remains a high-octane offensive force with a large number of offensively threatening players with little interest in defense. However, with Ibad Khan in goal, that hardly seems a pressing issue any longer.

Ihsan remained a gritty defense-first team which prefers a grinding style of hockey. With a shortened bench last week, it looked like Ihsan ran out of gas at some point and spent the rest of the game stuck in their own zone. Still, the team bent and didn't break as they continued to grind and battle until the clock ran out.

Due to week one absenses, a few players will look to make their debut this week. This include, Usama Mahmood and Yusuf Ingar from Ihsan as well as Safi Ahmed and Muhammad Bilal from Taqwa.

Player To Watch: Omar Husain has some silky, smooth hands. While the youngster will likely take time to fully adapt to Tier-1 hockey, he showed flashes of brilliance in week one.

Emaan V Sabr - 10PM

Both teams came out of the losing end last week and will be highly motivated to shake off last Friday's disappointment.

Emaan's defeat came in a game which was far closer than the score indicated. We all hate hockey cliche's about "the bounces" but a ball literally bounced on the goal-line for Emaan was likely in the net but was quickly batted out before a referee could confirm a goal. Add that to hitting the post and running into a hot goaltender in general, Emaan certainly believes that the game could have turned their way if they had gotten the right bounces.

Sabr seemed stunned out of the gate against Taqwa but soon after began competing at a higher level. Unfortunately, that was only after surrendering some game deciding goals. Otherwise the team did seem out of sync on the power-play and in other situations. Players like Shuaib Hussain will need to find ways to ingrain himself with the team instead going their own way on the floor.

Player To Watch: Haseeb Syed is nothing short of a handful for his opponents with his unrelenting aggressiveness on the floor. He can single-handedly lift his team with a great play or sink them with a bad penalty. In either case, he's a game-changer.

Week One - September 12th

Sabr vs Taqwa

Re-match already. The two teams that endured an epic battle in the finals in which Sabr overcame 3-0 and 4-1 deficit's to win the championship in sudden death fashion.  None months later and things have changed. Farooq Khan, who registered a hat-trick in that fateful game for Sabr, is now property of Taqwa via the draft. Taqwa's aggressiveness on draft day also allowed them to land star goaltender Ibad Khan. These two moves represent massive upgrades for Taqwa, despite losing some offensive depth in Ali Wadee and Yusuf Ingar to Ihsan.  Sabr on the other hand has largely maintained their roster and is looking to repeat their success with a similar recipe of implementing hockey systems that give them neutral zone dominance and an advantage in possession.


Player to Watch: The player who drew the ire and wrath of Taqwa last season, Luqman Arshad, is now donning the Black jersey himself. Awkward. We aren't expecting him to throw up a bunch of goals, but he'll definitely be a player to watch!


Ihsan vs Emaan

There's some bad blood here as Emaan's brass believe that Ihsan's group coerced Omar Sabri to drop into the draft using some less than fair tactics. Emaan ferociously contested Ihsan at the draft and will do the same on the floor.These teams are counter opposite of each other. Emaan uses the depth on their bench and tries to wear down opponents with their relentless speed and hustle. Ihsan throws playing time at their star players, and this year they have more than a few stars to throw at the opponents. Omar Sabri, Sajjid Ayubi, Usama Mahmood and Tariq Ayubi are a formidable group. Throw in Dilawar Alvi, Omar Husain, and Ali Wadee and there’s some depth to back that up.

Player to Watch: We'll use two players for this one; Zayd Agjee and Ali Khwaja. The fates of both teams will likely lay with both goaltenders and this will be the first chance to see what they'll bring this season.