On Saturday night we played the Shufflers. They only had two roster players plus a 'new' one, two reserves (both Bumpers) and Andy in the net. We had five roster players and Nicole in goals, so let Jana play with us as a reserve to fill out our lines.
We started with our 'old' line first, being Brenton, Merrilyn and me. We played a vigorous two minute shift, were pretty knackered at the end of it. Josh scored a neat singlehanded goal at the end of the next shift, and then it was about ten minutes of trading chances with them before Craig first equalised, and then put them in front a couple minutes later. Lucky for us, Josh again closed his next shift with a singlehanded goal. Near the end of the first half there was a pair of penalties against them, which we sadly failed to capitalise on. We went into half time 2-2.
Almost immediately this was over early in the second half when Brenton got stung for tripping after probably the longest board battle I've seen (him and Merrilyn for our side), the puck never leaving the board as it was battled around from one centre wing, behind their goal and up to the opposite central wing. We saw off the penalty kill (I didn't play at this point) and then Brenton hit the rink with a vengeance out of the box. This was the only time our lines got 'muddled'.
Josh gave Crystal an assist to give us the lead after about five minutes. She scored again (on her own this time) a couple minutes later for what was to prove ultimately the game winning goal. Me and Merrilyn combined two minutes later, Craig dropped in his third for the Shufflers, and Merrilyn and I repeated our combination goal with one and a half minutes to go to close out the game 6-3.
We outshot them 10-8 in the first half and 15-5 in the second. Nicole's goal tending continued to improve, with her basic body positioning and butterfly technique starting to occur 'naturally'. She says that she's organised childcare for the rest of the season, so she should be in something approaching her standard form by the time finals come around. Excellent.
Josh continues to improve, going like a runaway train almost the whole time he is on the rink (as Merrilyn puts it). The changes he's made to his lifestyle in the last month are really showing their effect in his skating and general game play, let alone the consistency of his scoring output. Crystal also took a significant step forward, showing how hard she can skate in the last couple shifts of the game. I think maybe when she learns to trust her decisions a bit more, this will become a feature of her game. She's actually quite quick when focused. Jana played generally with Josh and Crystal, added a little defensive stability to an otherwise improvisational line. I only played the one shift with her, and managed to block her best shot at goal.
Brenton played a stirling game, taking all of our line's faceoffs and winning them all. He might not have gotten any points but he saved a few goals just by his faceoff performance. It's a pleasure playing wing to him when he does this. Merrilyn was her usual hard playing self, taking it close to her physical limit every time she goes out on the rink. I played the mobile sweeper for our line, complementing the positionally sounder play of my partners. It was really nice to start connecting passes again to Merrilyn in front of goal (we haven't played on the same regular line for several games) and feel the chemistry work. Both her goals came off tape to tape passes by myself on the wing/corner, the second after I had held the puck waiting for a passing seam to open.
I was pretty chuffed with my game. It didn't quite have the physical element the last game had, though I did have to exert my strength a couple times against Mike and Craig to ensure they didn't muscle the puck from me. I didn't take faceoffs because Brenton was on fire with them. I put several good shots on goal, one of which was apparently quite memorable. I think it was the one where I dodged my way through traffic to cut across the face of goal just outside of reach of the goalie until it seemed that I was too wide to shoot, and then flicked a no look backhand with a lot of power right on the net (barely saved with a deflection of the goalie's blocker).
But the chemistry evident in the passing game with Merrilyn (and to a slightly lesser extent, Brenton) was my highlight. Together with the fact that I had more than sufficient energy once the aerobic system kicked in at about the five minute mark.
It was about half way through the second half that I felt a loss of power in my left leg, associated with upper rear muscles. Not knowing better, I thought it might be a hamstring strain, took it a bit easier, considered even stopping. Played it out and then worried about what I'd done. Turns out it was all okay.
Very pleased.
GP 10 G 9 A 13 Pts 22 +18 7/3/0
Inline 46
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