It was always gonna be a tough Saturday afternoon at the Ice Arena as we were up against the Predators. It got tougher with scratchings of Ash, Kerri and Cam. And a couple of those who did skate were not feeling too well but forced themselves along. Cam and Ash helped on the bench, which was great. Tommy was his usual solid self in goal. The Predators had ten skaters, have quite a solid core of big forwards with powerful shots. It was always gonna be a tough game.
First Period was tough. They opened the scoring with a rush down the left board and a shot from the inside of the circle. At the time I was backing towards the crease from the other side, covering a winger who'd joined the rush directly from the bench. At the time of the goal I was looking my man in the eye from about two feet. I played an indirect role in our equaliser shortly afterwards, keeping the puck in the zone with a sort-of-shot from the centre of the blue that got tangled with a body in front of net. While I returned to cover my board the puck went on a pinball path to eventually be slotted by Jonesy(?). 1-1 at the first break.
Second Period was tougher. Both teams played heavy in the neutral zone, penalties started to accumulate (we took one for the night - too many men on the ice, they had two by period end, roughing and butt ending). I started to find my game however, chasing to the backboards and cutting off the centring pass, covering my winger if he dropped too low, finding an outlet pass a couple times, losing my feet at least twice (and taking down at least one Predator each time I did so, except the time that I used my backward sliding feet to intercept the cross ice pass and deflect it into the corner instead of finding the pinching swooping centre in the slot). Generally though, our positioning fell away a bit his period. Neither team had scored again by the second buzzer, still 1-1.
Third Period was equally tough, but by this stage our conditioning was beginning to come up trumps. Only their best and brightest were keeping their speed up (they were always the ones who were a real threat), the rest of their team was fading. Our guys just kept going and concentrated on keeping it fairly tight. It was good to see.
I put in the game winning goal from the point on my second shift. It was one of my usual 'shots', a wrister along the ice with no set up except stepping into the shot. It went through under the goalie's pad right in the corner. It was about my fourth similar style shot from the blue line on the evening and not the strongest of them. Sweet! We backed up with another goal from our forwards and then battened down defensively for the final onslaught over the last five minutes. Somehow we kept them out.
Good win, 3-1.
The Predators had almost as many shots on goal as we did, though they blocked a few more than us. I pinched and got beat once early in the first, played more responsibly after that. I joined the rush on the PP once in the second, apart from that I stayed high in the O zone and tried my best to cover the blue. Generally I was successful. I tried to play stronger on my stick (wider grip) and, when I remembered, it allowed me to keep the puck against opposition a couple of times, take it away from them twice.
I got outskated for speed a couple of times but managed to drive them behind the goal line before they got away from me. I failed to release my lower hand when racing for the puck, will add a couple of paces when I can more consistently do this.
Keeping my eye on the body as I backed up meant that I generally was able to prevent them deking around, when combined with proper gap control. Managed several poke checks, made good use of the boards, put a couple of good passes up to my wingers, still need to work on our breakouts. Managed to surprise one of their guys when he'd taken the puck onto his blade and I proceeded to pass the puck anyway, forcing his stick with mine to get it where I wanted it to go. Good little trick, that!
I was on for all three of our goals as well as theirs. Apparently I was 'everywhere' according to more than one observer. Will have to watch this, ensure that wherever I might be on the ice, I'm where I need to be at the right moment!
GP 5 G 2 A 1 Pts 3 +4 4/0/1
Ice 45
Videos to come when I edit can find the time to post them up!
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