Fridge

Fridge

Sunday 17 January 2016

Game Day - Blades (5) d Knights (4) SO

We lost last night's game in a shootout, having first surrendered a first period lead of 2-0 and then, in the third, struggling to score an equaliser to even get to a shootout.  In that sense, it was a disappointing outing.  Part of the disappointment arises from the fact that I was involved with three of their goals, albeit being on the ice for all of ours also.   On the other hand, I/we can play better than we did and as a result I am pretty certain that we can beat this team should we meet them in the playoffs.

We had nine skaters again, same as the Blades.

My takeaway lessons from the game mainly centre around the goals that we allowed when I was on the ice.  For the first, I was backing in and keeping their guy on the outside.  I could maybe have closed the gap on him a little but was playing conservative.  I'd only picked him up late (as he entered the zone) due fact my partner further up had been caught flat footed and I was picking up the pieces.  The shot went in from above the hashmarks, probably just above the dot.  I don't think that any real blame attaches to me for this one.

The second goal was one where I had inside position between winger and goal, had kept him from screening our goalie, had my stick under his as the pass came in from the corner, and yet still totally failed to disrupt the subsequent shot.  A sticklift or a good shove would have been all it took to neutralise the eventual scorer.

The third was one that was fairly regretable.  I'd pulled up at our post as our centre carried the puck behind the goal.  Somehow he lost his footing and went down, to be pounced on by a pursuing forward.  I dropped back and was shouting at our guy to 'get up', trying to step over him to get back in front of the net as the forward steamed off.  I was still emerging from behind the net when the pass came in to the open winger in front of the open goal (Tommy was covering the shot).  It was especially painful to watch from my position because I knew exactly where I would have been if not snarled up behind the net.

Lest it seem like it was all doom and gloom, it wasn't.  I blocked a couple shots solidly, helped kill off their one power play, tied up a forward in front of our net several times, carried and reset several times, played ping pong on the blue line at least once, took several shots of which two ended up in the mitt and, most gratifyingly, seemed to get a lot of passes onto a friendly stick (generally board passes, though not always).  I iced it once on a long pass that sailed past a dreaming forward who wasn't watching the play (frustrating).

Conditioning held up again; peak HR of 195 (avg 170), EPOC of 109 ml/kg, VO2 of 38 ml/kg/min.  What will be really interesting is whether I can replicate this again tomorrow, and at the same time play smarter deep in our own zone, in what is arguably the most important game of our season.

GP 14 G 2 A 3 Pts 5 +7 9/3/1/1 PIMs 12 

Ice - 2

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