Through three games, French champions Grenoble have acquitted themselves well in the Champions Hockey League in an extremely difficult Group E. On an opening road trip that could have decimated them, they lost only 3-1 in Oulu and then surprisingly won in Skellefteå 2-1 in regulation time.
On Thursday, “Les Brûleurs de Loups” returned home and lost 6-2 to Kärpät Oulu. However, even that score was not indicative of how the team played. If not for a few costly mistakes, they could have taken at least a point from it.
“We knew we had to be patient, to defend our net, but with 2.30 left at the end of the second period we made three mistakes which changed the whole game,” said Grenoble head coach Edo Terglav. “It’s hard because we were close and if at the end of the second period the game was tied 1-1, it could have created some doubts in their mind, and anything could have happened in the third period. But it’s like that at this level, you can’t afford those kinds of costly mistakes even if you have a good game.”
One of Grenoble’s leaders is 33-year-old forward Damien Fleury. As a veteran of the KHL, SHL, Finnish Liiga, Swiss National League and nine World Championships, the French national team captain is well familiar with this calibre of hockey and knows that minor lapses against teams like Kärpät, Skellefteå AIK and SC Bern can be costly.
“It’s a good reminder. Against those teams, if you don’t play 60 minutes, you are punished.”Damien Fleury (Forward, Grenoble)
“That’s what happened to us tonight,” said Fleury. “We had a bad time at the end of the second period where we gave up three goals and the game was over. Against those teams, there is not only one player who can make the difference – every player can make the difference, so you can’t afford that kind of downtime.”
Fleury scored the game-opening goal and assisted on Grenoble's second goal on a 5-on-3 power play early in the third period. Overall, he has four points in three games, which leads the team.
“We have a lot of players who are discovering the CHL. It’s not easy. This is how it is at this level.”
Looking ahead to the rematch with Skellefteå, Fleury said: “Now we are going to try to forget it and focus on Saturday game. It’s a very important game for us because we need to get some points at home. We did it away, now we have to do it at home. There are still a lot of positive things, we have worked hard, we tried to give them not many opportunities to score, so they are some positive things we can work on, but we need to stop our individual mistakes. If we can do this and play liked we did in Sweden, we can hope for a better result.
“It’s such a pleasure to play such games at this level.”