Leeds Knights coach Ryan Aldridge insists there is 'no pressure' to repeat double heroics

Given they enter the 2023-24 campaign as league and play-off champions there will understandably be great expectations placed on the Knights – from their fans, their rivals, even most neutral observers – to emulate last season’s stunning success.

But there will be no internal pressure to come up with a repeat show, insists Aldridge. All he will demand – as ever – is that they give their best every night.

That may still prove enough to land at least one more piece of silverware for an organisation still only in its third season.

But the landscape has changed since the Knights travelled home from Coventry’s SkyDome Arena in April clutching the play-off trophy.

Significant roster changes of their own and a change in the rules to allow each team a third import has created – in theory, at least – a more level playing field. Time, as the saying always goes, will tell.

Leeds may look lighter on firepower than last year having seen Cole Shudra return to boyhood team Sheffield Steelers and imports Zach Brooks and Jake Witkowski move on to new challenges – but they still carry plenty of offensive threat.

Shudra was only one of three players to pass the 100-point mark last time out. Captain Kieran Brown and assistant Matt Haywood remain in place, while having Mac Howlett on board for a full season offers the chance for three players to rack up a century of points once again.

If Howlett picks up where he left off at the end of last term, when posted 67 points, including 26 goals, in just 33 league and play-off games, he will surely be on course to match, if not better, Shudra’s contribution from last season.

“We’ve got to take the pressure away from ourselves,” said Aldridge. “We’re a different group for a start and winning is hard. Like I said the other night at a sponsors’ event, it can be draining.

“I’ve had this conversation with other coaches who have said ‘oh, it must be tough at the top’ – it was. To go and do that again this season is going to take some serious effort.

“You need a bit of luck on your side to do something special like what we did last season and I’m sure, within the group, the boys want to do something special again.

“But, right now, I don’t think there is pressure on us internally. There are expectations from outside, but certainly not inside.”

As for Saturday night’s hosts – who visit Elland Road Ice Rink on Sunday (face-off 5.15pm) – Bristol are expected to carry more threat this season, overseen by a coach in Jamie Elson who Aldridge knows very well.

"I’m sure they will be tougher this time around,” said Aldridge of a team who finished ninth in their first season in the second-tier. “They’ve improved their goaltending. I watched their game against Swindon from the other night and I think we’ll probably go down there with the same gameplan as last year.

"They’ve made a few upgrades and we’ve got to make sure we take that into account, but then the whole league has done that – Solway coming in proved that at the weekend against us.

"I don’t feel the scorelines really reflected those games – they are a good hockey team, have some dangerous players on the ice.

"The league generally has improved. Swindon have improved, Milton Keynes have probably improved – lots of teams have.

“It’s going to be a good league and whoever does win it, it is going to be hard for them to do so.”