Saturday, October 02, 2010

Seawolves Win Exhibition 4-1

Coach Dave Shyiak got his first look tonight at a young Seawolves team.  In his pregame interview with the awesome Kurt Haider Shyiak emphasized that there are indeed openings for playing time.  And lots of freshman got their first chance ... 9 out of 10 of them.

In goal both Rob Gunderson and Chris Kamal turned in solid showings as both were tested at times amongst the 9 shots Windsor got through to them.  Credit is probably deserved for Windsor's goalie Frank Dayus who was described on the radio feed as being hot.  Sounded like he stoned the Seawolves more than a couple of times.

Overall, it sounded like the Seawolves dominated play particularly in the 2nd period when they held Windsor to a single shot.

Here's the text from the UAA release:
Tommy Grant scored a pair of goals and newcomer Jordan Kwas had a three-point night to lead the Alaska Anchorage hockey team to a 4-1 exhibition win over Windsor at the Soldotna Sports Center Saturday night.

Windsor's Dan Reaume scored at 7:35 of the first period to give the Canadian visitors a 1-0 lead. But the young Seawolves responded with four unanswered goals - two by Grant, one by Mitch Bruijsten and the closing seconds empty-netter by Kwas to secure the win.

UAA held a commanding 35-9 shots on goal advantage for the contest. Freshman netminders Rob Gunderson (three saves, one goal) and Chris Kamal (five saves, 0 goals) split time in goal for the Seawolves.

Freshman center Matt Bailey, who centered UAA's top line with Grant and Sean Wiles, was credited with two assists on the night. The Seawolves dressed nine freshmen on the night and 14 total underclassmen.
I can't really begin to guess what the coaching staff will have learned in this game.  Hopefully they saw some positive things that they didn't expect.  I like the low number of shots obviously.  And getting over 30 shots is a good indication that there was some click offensively.  From the freshman class only Justin Kirchevel didn't play.  I'm betting we see him in action this weekend.
It's good that freshman were involved in every goal that the Seawolves scored.  It'll be better to see that continue into the regular season starting next weekend.  There is much left to be seen and learned about this year's Seawolves team.  Next weekend is the first test.

Impressions?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy to see Winston Day Chief appear on University of Lethbridge scoresheet as they beat (are my eyes deceiving me?) Denver.

Donald said...

Yeah, lol ... I saw that one.

Anonymous said...

DayChief played for us 07-08, is he a senior for Lethbridge? He only played 12 games for them last season.

Donald said...

I didn't look into that. CIS schools have their own set of definitions for the years of eligibility. For example, the team we just played had a 28 year old with ECHL experience.

David Tuttle said...

I went to Soldotna on Saturday night to watch the game, as I would have had no other reason to go there in the rain after working all day, but I was less than enthused. Granted it did get better after the first period the game was far from over until Tommy tallied his second PPG of the night. A lot of the shots we were credited with were very low percentage and too many of the good looks that we had were shot right into the logo. 35-9 looks good on a scoresheet but in all actuality scoring chances were pretty even. I (of course) talked to Kurt after the game I told him my feelings and he said "It was a GOOD game, it was competitive...but Windsor isn't North Dakota." 'Nuff said.

Anonymous said...

Today I resisted the urge to punch Doyle Woody in the face.

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