Week Nine - November 14th

Ihsan vs. Emaan

9PM

The two highest flying teams will meet up this Friday in the battle for 1st place in the standings. Emaan has rung off two top big wins: first, they embarrassed Taqwa with a big 6-2 victory, then they scored 3 unanswered goals with 1:40 left in the game to stun Sabr and emerge with a 4-3 victory. The latter will likely go down as one of the greatest comebacks in I-Slam Hockey history.

But what is undeniable is that Emaan's work ethic and ball-possession domination is starting to pay off in a big way. I've said from the start of the season that it is not reasonable to believe that Emaan will out-shoot their opponents so massively and not start having those shots turn into goals. As with all statistical variables, it will always regress to the mean. In this case, it meant that Emaan's shooting percentage would eventually rise and that their shots will eventually turn into goals (#fancystats, #PDO, #corsi).

So, yeah. Emaan is out-shooting (and therefore out-possessing) their opponents. In fact, the only team that has been close to Emaan in the shot clock was Ihsan in their most previous match-up, where the shots were 24-22 favouring Emaan.

But a lot of things have changed since the last time these two clubs met. Hassan Badreddine has supplied Emaan with a big presence down the middle and has been key in creating their new-found offense. Hisham Ali has continued to produce and with Ahmad Hathout notching his first of the season last week, there's plenty of good news on Emaan's side.

But Ihsan stands undefeated in their last four games, and only three points away from clinching top spot in the standings and a straight trip to the finals. Emaan likely has their sights set on that same goal, even though only a few weeks ago they were trying to stay in the playoff hunt.

Player to Watch: The way Hassan Badreddine has changed the dynamics with Emaan has been huge. Ihsan will need to key in on Badreddine who has 4 points in his last game.

Who's Hot: Usama Mahmood has only played 3 games this season, was scoreless in one of those games (against Emaan, interestingly) but still has 6 points on the season.

Taqwa vs. Sabr

10PM

Sabr might be wearing Bruins yellow but they made their best impression of the Maple Leafs last Friday when they surrendered a 3-1 lead in the last 1:40 of what was the closest thing to a must-win game for Sabr.

As much as that was a painful moment for Sabr, they need to put it behind them. This is the must win game of the season. If they lose this, you may as well count them out. Taqwa is the team they're chasing and a win would pull them into a tie.

The good news for Sabr - and there isn't much available there - is that they may have found some decent chemistry on a line between Shuaib Hussain, call-up Aazar Zafar and winger Saleem Malik. This is important because Hussain and Malik have both been disappointments for Sabr this season, even though relatively high draft picks were spent on both of them. If Sabr can find a linemate for Yousuf Soliman and Akib Malik, both returning from suspension, they can fix the problems in the bottom of their lineup. 

Sabr should have realized that they can't win games by relying heavily on their top five forwards, so solving their line issues will go a long way. In fact, the reason both these teams are at the bottom of the standings is because they haven't found a way to effectively use their benches.

Taqwa meanwhile has some bad news, as it appears that Safi Ahmed has suffered a knee injury. No word yet on whether he will be replaced but considering Ahmed played his most dominant game of the season last week against Ihsan, that is a big loss for Taqwa.

This will definitely be the game to watch this week.

Player to Watch: Shaukat Khan makes another appearance here. He's just to darn dangerous, especially on the PP. Be prewarned.

Who's Hot: Sami Choudhry leads the league with 13 points and is on a 4 game point streak.