The 'high'lights in respect of my game are fairly obvious in the first period. In my first shift I collide at fairly slow speed with a giant of a Shark, which causes my knee to freak out so I struggle off and sit out the next shift or two while my team mates cover for my knee's recovery. I return to the ice for the faceoff after our opponents score, only to be present (indeed, in the goal mouth) for their second goal. I watch our first from the bench, but am in the precedent defensive play to Christian's single handed assault into the O zone and score. Although it's not caught on the video (which is why I know that not all my shifts are captured) I was banged to the ice a second time in this period, although this time it was by a team mate who'd drifted down into the corner and into what I thought was clear ice as I backed out of a battle in preparation for a rush. That one hurt my knee far more than the hit with the opponent and I admit I was cursing my team mate as I limped back to the bench.
My highlight of the second period was my shot at goal from the point, which resulted in a bit of a scramble over the rebound and our team's third goal. Again, no points went my way but I certainly (helped) create the situation that ended in our goal, very pleased. To bring me back to earth, the next play was a goal to them, with me on the ice again.
The third period was a bit brutal, with them scoring what turned out to be the game winning goal about half way through. We were able to maintain our sustained assault on their goal for much of the period, with no result. My best play was to take the pass from one of several final minute face offs and get a nice pass through to Tom in the high slot. He didn't get a clean one timer, so it came to nothing, but I executed really nicely to capitalise on Christian's win in the draw. No complaints.
*
If you've watched the above videos you'll know that the game was pretty harsh at times, with quite a bit of roughing going on. It was also highly enjoyable at the time, though would have been nice to see us capitalise a bit more on our 26 official shots on goal (they only had 13). As a team, we put it down to a bit of the 'hero' attitude (which caused players to play out of position) and lack of communication. In other words, we weren't playing as much as a team as we had the week previously.
For me, I did some things well and some things not so. The positives include my one shot on goal, a few nice passes under pressure, a couple successful races for the puck or to at least disrupt an attack. My main failing was not successfully committing when pinching forward into the O zone to grab a loose puck (allowing them to get behind me), not being strong enough on the block when trying to stop them raiding up the board a couple times (allowing them to get behind me), and playing too far back to be effective at cutting their options. All these things can be improved upon.
GP 5 G 0 A 0 Pts 0 +1 3/2/0
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