Friday, October 17, 2008

Seawolves 3 - Black Bears 1

The Seawolves won both ends of the special teams game with a perfect penalty kill performance (0-8 including about 1:30 of 5x3 time) and a 40% conversion rate on their power play chances (2 for 5). The Seawolves gave up what has become the oft gifted 1st goal to opponent even-strength at 3:35 on a somewhat fluky bounce that found it's way through/around Jonny O's pads. But on their 1st power play chance UAA's Kevin Clark stayed with the puck in tight and slipped it past Black Bear netminder Dave Wilson.

Much of the 1st period was dominated by two teams who seemed a bit tight or perhaps unwilling to risk opening the game up. Granted UAA killed 4 Maine power plays during the period. The PK was tight and gave up little in terms of chances for the Black Bears. During the period break Coach Shyiak changed to a more aggressive penalty killing style and during the 3 power plays in the 2nd period they managed to create several good shorthanded chances. When both teams were 5-on-5 UAA also saw time of possession in their favor though Maine was able to counter and set up in UAA's zone for some short efforts. The Seawolves converted on the prettiest play of the night when Paul Crowder dropped deep near the crease and shoveled a backhand pass to Kevin Clark in the slot, Clark slid it sweetly over to a wide open Craig Parkinson who buried it into the open side. From that point on the Seawolves looked confident and in control of everything they did with a brief exception.

With well under 10 minutes left to play Maine's 1st goalscorer Gustav Nyquist flipped a puck past Jonny O which found the sport where crossbar and post connect. Jonny's (and UAA's) best friend on the night. UAA picked up their 3rd goal after goaltender Dave Wilson had at first been pulled. Wilson went out with more than a minute remaining but UAA cleared the puck deep into Maine's zone on a missed attempt at an empty netter. While the puck was being challenged in the corner Wilson flew back out into the crease only to find himself facing Josh Lunden and Brian Bales on a 2-on-none turnover. Josh took responsibility going backhand to slide it in for the clincher.

Key to this game (and most of the future games this season) ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ... Special teams ...

That's it plain and simple. The Seawolves will likely need to bring down the 9 penalties a game to have success most nights. The good thing is that they look confident killing penalties and have been getting that job done so far.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congrats to the Seawolves. Always nice to see the win. I'd like to see fewer penalties, but at least it's good non-conference practice for special teams.

I thought Portwood looked very strong, he reminds me of Jay Beagle.

Bruce keeps announcing that UAA's third goal was into an empty net, so thanks for explaining it wasn't.

Kris said...

The penalties really scare me. When we get into the tough part of the schedule going to the box as many times as we have made habit of doing won't cut it. I do need to check the stats because it seemed like we did better than at our tournament in that department. There didn't seem to be as many whistles in this game. Time to see what we can do against Mercyhurst.

Anonymous said...

Glad to see the boys picked up a big early season win. The game started at 2 AM my time so needless to say I wasn't up to listen to it on the internet considering I had to be to work at 5. Hopefully they can handle the Lakers pretty easily.

Anonymous said...

I was really glad to see Johnny O play a solid game last night.Lets face it the Seawolves are going to need Both Goalies this year to continue there strong play of late.

Anonymous said...

Very happy to see Jonny have a solid game. Very happy. Good for him. All the players played solid as well. Very happy about that as well. Good luck tonite boys!

Go Seawolves!!!! !

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