Plans for next season underway at Stingrays

HULL STINGRAYS player-coach Sylvain Cloutier will tomorrow begin to determine which members of his roster he wants to try and retain for next season.

The East Yorkshire club's 2009-10 campaign came to end at the weekend when a 4-1 defeat at Elite League champions Coventry Blaze saw them exit the post-season play-offs at the first hurdle, losing 6-2 on aggregate.

Finishing bottom in the regular season had pitted Hull against Coventry in the play-offs.

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After battling through a torrid opening few months of the season where injuries and suspensions left Stingrays' line-up seriously depleted, things took a turn for the better in January as bodies healed and key players returned.

Taking 24 points from their last 22 games saw Hull go into the post-season as one of the form teams and gave them their highest-ever regular season points tally since joining the Elite League in 2006.

And, despite being generally happy with the effort shown by his squad in the last three months, Cloutier admits changes need to be made in order to progress even further.

"Obviously I know in my mind who I want to try and keep and I'll be sitting down with the players individually to discuss things," said Cloutier.

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"We want to keep a core group together for next year and build a team around that which will come out and compete for 60 minutes every night.

"It's been a big challenge this season, but I've got no regrets.

"The standard throughout the league was really good, I felt, but we eventually managed to find a way to beat them all at some point."