Both teams had six skaters, which was nice. We were given another new recruit, Rick, so we have six on our roster. Hopefully no more games with only four players! And we had Jordyn in goal, so we fielded a full Wheelers team for only the second time in my 29 games on the team. The Rockers were in the same situation, though with a rotated goalie.
The first half of the game began with (I think) Krystal, Merrilyn and me on the rink. It was a long shift with several good rushes on our part. I was the last off, more than five minutes after the game began (with no faceoffs to give a breather or opportunity for a change). Merrilyn put in two unassisted goals within a minute on her second shift. The second in particular was pretty classy, being a long shot from almost half way as she was about to be shut down before she could truly break away. The Rockers put up an answering goal eight minutes later on a shot that Jordyn actually had stopped by collapsing down onto it, but she began raising herself almost immediately and before the puck had lost all its momentum. So it trickled over and we went into half time 2-1 up.
We started the second half with me, Krystal and Tash on the rink. We had turned over the lines by the five minute mark, when the Rockers equalised with a thumping point shot from their prime scorer. Five minutes later I was on the bench again, when the Rockers took the lead with a nice piece of contested rushing by Craig until he was behind us, followed by a nicely waited (and weighted) shot into the net. In the next few minutes we upped the pressure, resulting in a close in equaliser by Krystal off a feed from myself. We took the lead a couple minutes later with a crisp snap by our newbie.
We never looked back, despite several trips from behind and a general blizzard from the opposition (I think they hit the pipes twice in the last five minutes). Krystal had a penalty shot for I think the first time. The experience was pretty good for her (she commented on the 'pressure' later), despite not slotting it. With less than two minutes to go I got behind them and had a shot on the rush from about 30', finding the back of the net on the blockerside and half way up. Rick managed to snap another in from the slot shortly afterwards and we went to full time 6-3 victors. Sweet.
*
I was happy with my game. I (as is usual these days) emphasised my defensive game, generally playing the high slot in offence unless I was chasing for a breakaway. I had a couple ferocious plays in the second half, the first to chop and disrupt Craig as he tried to protect the puck on a break out along the boards, and then in a battle on the boards with Paul behind their goal that seemed to go on and on and had the audience go quiet waiting for a penalty as we pushed and shoved and kicked and blocked and heaved and hacked and slashed and hung on until a whistle went to restart play. Generally I managed to close the gap on their shooters at the right moment, otherwise keeping a restrictive gap on them with sufficient space to push them to the outside. I blocked one shot and deflected another, and didn't fall down unassisted after the first minute, made a couple tight turns while protecting the puck. Need to start trying to create passing options. My ice hockey role and training is beginning to show itself in most aspects of my game.
Our team performed really well, although we need to tighten up on the shift times. We won't always have as much help from our goalie and we will therefore need to be skating harder at all times to keep up our new momentum.
GP 7 G 8 A 6 Pts 14 Pmin 4 3/2/2
Inline 4
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