Lyle switches Bison for Wildcats

Lyle joins the Wildcats for the 2013-14 season. Photo by David Steadman

The Swindon Wildcats have announced what could arguably be their best signing for the 2013-14 season with the capture of Basingstoke Bison talisman netminder, Stevie Lyle just weeks after the play-off finals. The 33 year-old Cardiff born netminder joined the Bison last season, as they looked to over-turn their fortunes in the English Premier League, following three consecutive seasons with the Cardiff Devils in the Elite League.

Lyle, pulled out all the stops in his first season in the EPL with some huge performances during the season and was one of the reasons the Bison finished in their highest league position since dropping to the EPL from the Elite League. Despite finishing behind Milton Keynes’ Stephen Wall in the stats charts, Lyle was arguably the best netminder in the league and was voted in the EPL All-star first team. Lyle iced in 52 league games, which would have been 54 had he not been selected by Tony Hand to represent Great Britain in their 2014 Winter Olympic qualification tournament in Latvia in February, and faced 1,678 shots. He put up impressive numbers for the season; included a 2.43 goals against average and a 92.43 save percentage.

A huge, huge blow for the Bison and Doug Sheppard with very big skates to fill, and a fantastic pick up and first signing for Aldridge in his 6th season in charge of the Wildcats. He said in the announcement of his return for next season that he wanted to move the club forwards and upwards and what better way to start. Although the pairing of Skinns and Murdy is not a bad one, last season the Wildcats recorded 214 goals against whilst the Bison had the league’s lowest of 138; with only the Lightning and league champions Guildford coming close.

A player like Lyle gives you confidence at the back, however he cannot be relied upon totally to win you games. He can definitely give you an edge, which showed with the Bison this season, however you also need a strong defence and forward set-up so that you also score goals whilst not conceding them. The Wildcats had the best offensive line in the league last season with Jonas Hoog and Aaron Nell and these will be the next signatures Aldridge will be desperate to capture to ensure that once again the Wildcats have a strong squad, not only on paper, but also on the ice as well.

For Sheppard back in Basingstoke, he’ll surely be scratching his head as another key Brit he would have surely been hoping to keep has slipped through his grasp, less than two weeks into the summer recruitment period. He showed a year ago that he can recruit well on, and sign top players, whilst being on a medium sized “budget” and he will already have a feeling as to who could fill the void that has now been left by Lyle’s departure.

We’ve still got weeks and months ahead of us before the season re-starts in September and it is already getting interesting and exciting as to who will sign where.

The full Swindon Wildcats press release is available here.