Leeds Knights captain Kieran Brown setting early pace for others to chase in NIHL National

After eight games, Brown tops the scoring charts again, posting 15 goals and eight assists for a 23-point haul - almost three per game.

The man who is currently keeping pace with him, he will come face-to-face with Saturday when the Knights host Bees IHC at Elland Road Ice Arena (face-off 6.30pm).

Dominik Gabaj has overseen something of a transformation in Slough, his team currently sat fourth in the standings and, potentially, staring at going top if they get the better of their hosts in regulation and other results go their way.

Not bad for a team that missed out on the play-offs last time out and only scraped in the year before, partly by virtue of a controversial points deduction imposed on rivals Raiders IHC.

The past two seasons have seen Gabaj post 80-point-plus hauls, still some way shy of the 120-plus totals put together by the Knights’ captain.

And while head coach Ryan Aldridge is more than happy to see Brown having such a prolific start to the season, he is more interested in the overall influence of the man he made skipper ahead of the 2022-23 campaign.

“Kieran has turned into a real, real hockey player,” said Aldridge.”I believe he’s getting better and better- year-on-year, month-on-month, game-by-game.

“When you look at it, it isn’t just about his goalscoring, when you look at his +/- and what he brings to the team.”

When asked if Brown was becoming the ‘complete’ player, Aldridge added: “He’s definitely getting there.

“He is the only player on the team who has not been a minus all year and it’s what he is bringing off the opuck, too, his maturity, everything is going in the right direction.”

After the disappointment of a 4-2 home defeat to Swindon Wildcats last Saturday, it was Brown who led the response the following evening at home to former team, Sheffield Steeldogs.

Before the game had got to the halfway point, the former Bradford Bulldogs’ junior had fired his team into a 3-0 lead, the game closed out in the third period by strikes from Oli Endicott and Mac Howlett.

The result went some way to making amends for the previous night’s display, which Aldridge had labelled “not good enough” although there were still elements of Sunday’s performance which left him frustrated.

“The result was the main thing, but some of our players still weren’t good enough,” added Aldridge.

Another plus from last weekend was the competitive debut of import defenceman Noah McMullin, although his return will be cancelled out if Jordan Griffin misses this weekend due to suffering an upper-body injury against Swindon.

After the home clash against Bees, the Knights head north of the border and a first-ever competitive against league newcomers, Solway Sharks, who they beat twice in pre-season.

The Sharks will be buoyed by picking up their first points last weekend with successive wins, evidence, Aldridge believes, of their players gradually adjusting to the rigours of NIHL National hockey.

“I think people just think that players dropping down from the Elite League are just going to come in and find their feet straight away,” said Aldridge. “They don’t, this is a different kind of hockey, a different style.

“It was always going to take those guys a bit of time to figure this league out and they’ve got it at both ends in a way - they’ve got guys that have come up and guys that have come down, they haven’t got many people who have previously played in this league.

“So they’ve obviously taken a bit of time to adjust and figure this league and I’m guessing - judging by last weekend - that they have turned it around.”