Bristol preview ahead of the Southwest derby
The Pitbulls will make the trip to the Links Centre on Saturday evening to take on the Wildcats in their away fixture of the weekend. There have been changes within the Wildcats’ roster, with new additions to the roster of Canadian defenseman Ryan Well and Edward Bradley. In terms of forwards, Swindon welcomed Jake Bricknell into their line-up for the 2024/25 season. The Wildcats managed to secure most of their players for last season however, the departures of Stevie Whitfield and Russell Cowley from their roster left a gap of experience to fill within their team.
Last season the Wildcats had a strong powerplay unit with it being successful 30% of the time as they were able to secure 63 power-play goals out of 210 chances. 12 out of the 63 power-play goals were scored by Tomasz Malasinski, which aided him in being the top point scorer for Swindon last season as he tailed up 101 points from 40 goals and 61 assists. Another strength of the Wildcats’ last season that Aaron Nell would most probably want to build off of is the success of the penalty kill in Swindon as it was 80% effective for them during the season and then 80% effective during their playoff run that helped them secure a spot in the final four at Coventry playoff weekend.
Going into this weekend the Pitbulls will have to be cautious of defensemen Tyler Plews and Jake Bricknell. Tyler Plews is a very hard-hitting defenseman knows his place within the team and is not afraid to take risks to achieve for the team. In 54 games last season Tyler was able to secure 26 points from scoring 4 goals and assisting on 22 goals while also picking up 44 penalty minutes. Limiting Tyler Plews will be a big part of the game this weekend for the Pitbulls and by doing this it may better their chances of winning both games.
Jake Bricknell made this presence known to the rest of the league last weekend after scoring 2 goals on his debut for the Swindon Wildcats after joining the team this summer. Where Jake spent most of last season was in the ECHL with the Reading Royals after playing 43 games and collecting 13 points from 5 goals and 8 assists while also tallying up 53 penalty minutes but collected a total of 16 points altogether last season including his stats from the Cincinnari Cyclones, Trois-Rivieres Lions and Florida Everblades. He is no stranger to the UK as in the 2022/23 season Jake made the trip to play for the Manchester Strom where he was able to get 17 points from 6 goals and 11 assists with 71 penalty minutes. However one more player who should not be overlooked is young Dylan Lipsey who last weekend scored the first goal of the new season for the Wildcats and could bring great opportunities to the Wildcats given the opportunity to have high ice time this season.
