Game Day - Knights (1) d Predators (0)

We defeated the Predators in Sunday night's game at the Ice Arena.  It was our first win of the year and, after four defeats, very welcome.  We remain in sixth position on the ladder, equal on games won and points with the Predators, but they've had one game less.  In beating them we not only avoided them sweeping us in our home and away series of three but managed to trash their reasonable hopes of making the playoffs, almost reducing them to our own state of boundless optimism.  We still have a mathematical chance of making the playoffs, but will have to win all our games in regulation time and rely on the Kings losing all three of their remaining games, no more than one beyond regulation.  And, the Predators winning no more than two games.  Tough ask.

We had ten skaters and Tommy in goal.  They had eleven and their regular goalie.  For us, we were missing Henry, Beau and the elusive Dan.  Still, ten skaters equals two full lines and four D and that's enough to be going with in C grade.

I wasn't on the ice for our first goal.  It came near the end of the first period when Mike, unassisted, scored with a lovely lolly pop shot from close to the red line about half way in from the corner after going for one of his regular forays into the forward zone.  Occasionally he gets caught down there and the opposition breaks out through his point but he seems to be doing more damage with his offensive style than is getting past him.  Be that as it may, it is of note that our defence has scored our last four goals (of our total of five scored in five games this calendar year). 

The shot total at game end was 12-9 in our favour.  We managed to restrict them to only two shots in each of the final two periods.  Both teams hit the pipes once.

Tommy made some of the grandest saves I've seen him take all year, at least three times standing alone against up to three marauding opponents.  In the first period he covered a forward sweeping in along the red line, didn't flinch at the faked step and shot, covered the real thing and stopped any rebound.  In the third period he made a catcher save from a bullet from top right of the slot.  Both times I was on the ice.

The game flowed well for which one can only compliment the refereeing.  This was especially nice considering that both teams were playing hard, giving little if any quarter.  There were only two penalties for the whole game, one each way in the final period (both for hooking).  As seems the case more often than not, our penalty kill was spent mainly in their end.  They didn't get a shot off in theirs.

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I was pleased with most of my game.  I went down twice early in the first period due my clumbsiness on my feet (actually, I also think I need to get my blades sharpened as I've had doubts about my edges since I began to be able to feel my feet in the new Bauers) and once in the second.  This last was at speed as a forward got the break on me across the neutral zone and I scrambled to catch him.  I slid into the back boards at high speed on my front, had time to align myself to hit them square with my head facing up the ice and my legs bent 90' at the knees to take the shock and protect my blades.  It worked perfectly even if it was unorthodox. 

I managed to give everyone on our team a heart attack when I again managed to clear the puck from the right corner with a pass across the low slot.  The fact they didn't score off it doesn't make it any better.  I need to hit it into the corner, take it to the boards if pressured and hold it there for support, chip it up the boards on my side, or rim it around behind the goals.  Will I ever learn?  Enough said...

Although my stick was on the ice a lot more of this game than the last, I still managed to miss a puck as it came towards me.  It had been a bouncing puck, which is I think why I had the blade of my stick raised a few inches (happens too fast to be too conscious about it at my age) allowing it to get under and past me.  At least that's what I think happened.  I'll need to be yet more rigorous in keeping my blade down.

My consistent tactical weakness if finding them coming up along the boards to the blue line, getting it past me and out of their zone, and they're off.  I can sometimes catch them, but of the several times this again happened last night there was at least one which turned into a nasty shot on goal that was only saved by Tommy.  I need to learn more about stick checking.

Defending our blue line and the zone, I was reasonably successful.  Several times I found myself to be one on three and struggling to keep them out of centre.  Somehow I always managed it, leading to low percentage blasts towards goal from too far out.  As the game wore on I worked a bit on keeping the gap tighter as they came in on the flanks, trying to deflect them from moving to centre ice as was their wont.  I didn't quite prevent this, but did cause a bit of disruption to what appeared an almost habitual approach from one of their scoring wingers.

From the central slot I managed to block a couple shots, one by kicking it in midflight with my shin, another by having my stick deflect it in a long looping flight to bounce safely high on the end boards as it fell to the ice.  Both were hard shots and, judging by Tommy's reaction behind me, both were on goal.  I also managed to dissuade at least one shot by shielding the goals with my body as my opponent swept in from the flank (close the gap, 'grow big', move legs together to present a solid barrier) and on a few occasions prevented shots by keeping my blocking stick close to the puck as I (barely) kept pace in a skating race up the flank.  All in all, a much better performance in playing their breakouts than the last time we met, when I let them get around me on second or third effort (all on video if you look back through this blog).

I tried to play my role sufficiently to at least disrupt if not remove any forward who tried to plant him or herself in the central slot.  This entailed racing to my (right) corner when the puck was there, then racing back to clear the slot when the puck had been moved elsewhere.  No one gave me any real problems except for their most giant forward, but even he let me get in his head and that stopped him being too dangerous (especially I was always at his stick if not trying to physically push him around).  A good exercise in the dark arts of defence.

Again, several times, I ended a play with my body standing over or in some other way protecting our goalie as he lay helpless.  Protecting the person of our goalie is number one on my priorities, afterall, as defence.  This is ironic when the only player I ever intentionally hit with my stick is my goalie, when I slam a puck against him and hold it there for a whistle if a forward is trying to poke away at a close in loose puck that has escaped the goalie's attention or ability to reach it (eg. alongside his outstretched leg).

This post is already long enough, so I'll report only one other game incident of note.  It was in the second period when I again was chasing a puck in towards our goal, trying to cover their forward from getting to it (strong skater).  I was just beginning a stopping maneuver when I felt a push on my left shoulder (I was facing towards my goal and racing forwards, it had been a high speed sprint) and was airborne and suddenly traveling very fast.  I slammed down into Christian who had been covering the slot, landing on his ankle with my leg, and then we both slid into Tommy.  My initial fear was that I'd broken another person's ankle.  Christian, however, played out the game with the odd turn of high speed so I suspect it was 'just' a sprain.  I hope he's been able to walk okay!

GP 14 G 0 A 0 Pts 0 -11 6/7/1

Ice 13