2016-2017 PLAYER & GOALIE OF THE WEEK #3

The Corktown Suds head north to Hampton to face their division rivals as they try and get their season on track while Hampton in its only home game this week tries to keep up the momentum from their solid three-win second week.

Hampton gets another high octane offensive outburst, but dodges a bullet or rather steps in front of them blocking their way to victory.

New Jersey clearly has the fire power to put shots on the board. They need to work on hitting the new consistently. This weeks practice will focus on developing the team further.

Second City has their first three games of the week at home as they look to build on last week’s 2-2 mark after a rough first week.

Chicago vs Second City
The visitors from across town get two power play chances in the opening period but cant slip one past Tuuka Rask. Late in the period it is the fourth line for the Chiefs that opens the scoring with Pakarinen netting his first goal of the season set up by the newly acquired Gorges along with Marcus Kruger. 1-0 Chiefs after one.
In the second period it’s the home side getting a couple of opportunities with the man advantage. First a four minute power play that is successfully rubbed out by the Cosa Nostra. But later in the period it’s Shayne Gostistbehere from the point beating Mrazek for his third goal of the year to make it 2-0 Second City.
Not much action in the third until a Chicago turnover leads to an odd-man rush for Second City. Hayes and Burrows set up Gostisbehere for his second of the game to make it 3-0 with 7:31 to play. The Chiefs tack on another goal in the waning minutes from Palmieri to make it 4-0 and that’s the way it ends. Rask stops all 21 shots for the shutout.

Brentwood vs Second City
Scoreless first, although each team had power play chances, including 45 seconds of 5-on-3 for Second City. Shots were 9-8 in favor of the Chiefs.
Still scoreless until late in the second when Letang winds up from the blue line and lets one rip, Palmieri redirects it into the twine behind Lundqvist for his fifth goal of the season. Letang and Panarin with the helpers. 1-0 Chiefs after two periods.
Brentwood’s attempt at a comeback hits a snag midway through the third when Malkin is sent off for five minutes. The Chiefs are unable to light the lamp during the major penalty, but time is running short for the visitors. Second City controls the game the rest of the way and Tuuka Rask records his second straight shutout. Chiefs win it 1-0.

Lakeland at Second City
This one starts fast as John Moore blasts a one timer past Jones on the first shot of the game just 32 seconds into the first to give the Chiefs an early lead. Panarin with the sweet setup for his 13th assist of the year. Tigers tie it up not long after as Paquette puts one off the crossbar and in behind Rask ending the scoreless streak for Tuuka. First of the year for Paquette.
Lakeland then takes the lead on Andrew Ladd’s second goal of the year just a few minutes later. Tigers then get a power play as Moore heads to the sin bin. But it is the Chiefs that strike while short handed as Laich and Lewis get a breakaway and Lewis finds the twine for his first of the year.
Another two-on-one for the Chiefs and this time its Burrows from Lewis to give Second City the 3-2 lead not even halfway through the first yet. Second City gets a power play late in the first and they capitalize as Letang powers one home from the high slot for his first of the year. 4-2 Chiefs after the first on just 10 shots.
Four minutes into the second it’s Lakeland cutting the lead in half. Gudbranson fired one that Rask fought off but Belesky picks up the loose change and cashes in his third goal of the year. Second City answers with a little over seven minutes left in the second as Atkinson gets his second of the year from Letang and Moore. Back to a two goal lead at 5-3.
Chiefs add another goal just a few minutes later as Panarin redirects Benn’s slapper for his second goal of the season. 6-3 home team. Then about a minute later on a delayed penalty call it’s Palmieri with the defection on a Tavares shot. 7-3 Chiefs and Martin Jones is sent to the showers as Quick takes over in net. Seven goals allowed on 18 shots for Jones.
In the third it is Lakeland racking up the penalty minutes, including handing Second City a 5-on-3 for over a minute. The Chiefs make them pay as Karlsson gets his first of the year from Letang and Burrows to make it 8-3 and that’s how this one ends. Letang with four points, Panarin and Burrows with three points each for Second City.

Second City starts the week off well at home with three wins at the Wigwam. The Chiefs have now won five straight at home and are 5-1 in the Wigwam overall. They are yet to notch a road victory though. Overall Second City outscored their opponents 13-3 in their three home games this week. There may be hope for them yet.

Lakeland got off to a surprising fast start at home and I am still wondering what is going on, if they are for real or not.

Brentwood 0 @ Lakeland 3.

Jones with the SO and Seabrook finally catchs on with a G and an assist.

Star 1 – Jones SO, 30 Saves
Star 2 – Seabrook 1G 1A
Star 3 – Beleskey 1G

Bathgate 1 @ Lakeland 10

This one got out of hand. I tried to play all lines equally, but the good lines came out of the woodwork and probably wasted all its offense for the next 20 games. 🙂

Star 1 – Domi 2G, 2A
Star 2 – Oshie 2G, 1A
Star 3 – Henrique 1G, 2A

Well, Lakeland win 2 division games but I have seen the other 2 games results and we got kicked in those, so not sure what is going on.

Alamo comes in as a struggling team. They have 3 home games. First, its Ripon followed by Columbus. Then, game 3 will be Chicago visiting the Alamo City.

Ripon at Alamo

Wild game. Goalies were not on top of their games. Ripon outshoots Alamo, 39-34. With 1:30 left in the game, Pacioretty scores the game winning goal.

Alamo was fortunate to win as they had 16 penalty minutes to Ripon’s 8.

1st star – Tanner Pearson (2 goals)
2nd star – Taylor Hall (3 points)
3rd star – Kuznetsov (3 points)

Alamo 6 Ripon 5

Columbus at Alamo

No scoring in the 1st period. Alamo outshoots Columbus, 16-8. Then, the tables turn as Columbus dominates the second period, and really, the rest of the game. Holden, Miller and Burns score in the second for Columbus. Then, in the 3rd, Tyler Johnson scores 2. However, Alamo avoids the shutout, as Blake Wheeler nets one.

1st star – Tyler Johnson (2 goals)
2nd star – Crawford (36 saves)
3rd star – Burns (2 points)

Columbus 5 Alamo 1

Chicago at Alamo

In the 1st, Pacioretty scores a goal, and Chicago quickly counters with a Copp goal. With 6:02 remaining in the 1st, Wheeler scores. Its 2-1 after 1.

In the 3rd, Seguin scores for an insurance goal.

Alamo outshoots Chicago 39-28.

1st star – Seguin (1 goal, 1 assist)
2nd star – Greiss (27 saves)
3rd star – Pacioretty (1 goal)

Alamo 3 Chicago 1

Alamo 6 Ripon 5
Columbus 5 Alamo 1
Alamo 3 Chicago 1Alamo takes 2 of 3.

Long Beach hosts 3 games against tough teams over the weekend.

Long Beach hosts California in a battle of 6-2 teams. California lit the lamp first when Zibaneiad scored 14 minutes into the 1st period. Carlson tied the game on a power play goal with 1:30 left in the 1st period. Long Beach took a 2-1 lead on a Perrault PP goal with 8:42 to go in the 2nd. That was all the scoring as the goalies took over. California outshot Long Beach 36-20 but Andersen made 35 saves in the Ice Dogs win.

Long Beach hosts Hampton. After a scoreless first period, Ekblad gave Hampton the lead with a PP goal :12 into the second period. They increased the lead to 2-0 6 minutes later in Trocheck’s 6th goal of the year. Hampton increased the lead to 3-0 when Hansen tallied with 3 minutes to go in the period. Hampton dominated the period outshooting Long Beach 15-5 in taking a 3-0 lead. Hampton put the game away on a Trocheck PP goal with 8 minutes left in the game. Backlund added a goal with 5 minutes left. Nugent-Hopkins broke up the shutout :15 later. Nielsen tipped in a goal with 1:00 left to make the final score 6-1.

Long Beach hosts Thunder Bay. The Ice Dogs opened scoring when Teravainen tipped in a shot by Ellis 5 minutes into the game. Fabbri gave Long Beach a 2-0 lead when he scored on a wrist shot 4 minutes into the second period. That was all the scoring as Andersen made 27 saves in the shutout.

Long Beach wins 2 of 3

Corktown gets a couple home games this week to try to improve their slow start.

More offense as we continue to see with a high powered O and no D whatsoever. Lansing falls 2-0 early but rallies to take a 5-4 victory. Backstrom breaks a 4-4 tie with about a minute left for the 2 points.

The Suds took down Minneapolis 4-2. the 1st period ended scoreless. Cam Ward gave up 3, and the Suds added an empty netter late for the W.

The fans will see scoring action when Corktown is playing.

Bathgate – after a great week 1 is now in an pattern of occasional close wins and some big blowout losses. But hey, it’s hockey. Maybe resting the stars early will pay off at the end.

Thunder Bay stormed into Madison Round Garden (MRG) and soon found themselves behind 1-0 when King scored his 1st goal of the season at 6:18 of the 1st period. But then the Nor’Westers took command. 3 goals in the 1st including 2 from Saad and then O’Reilly chips ones in early in the 2nd and that 4 goal onslaught was never overcome. Kane tried to rally the hometeam, but Slavin and Barkov’s 3rd period goals were too much. King ended the game with a shorthanded goal at 19:15 to make it look closer.
Thunder Bay 6
Bathgate 3
Stars: 1 – Saad 2G, 3 Pts; 2 – King 2G; 3 – O’Reilly 1G, 3 PTs
Under the notables – Marincin for Bathgate got 15 PIM

Thunder Bay 6 – Bathgate 3
Bathgate 5 – Second City 31-1 split of the two games, looking forward to having Russell back in uniform for next week.

Jagr splits 1-1 at home.

The Minneapolis Deep Freeze get ready to take on the red hot Jagr Mullets in their only home game of the week.

Jagr Mullets @ Minneapolis Deep Freeze: JAG 2 – MIN 1
The Jagr Mullets got the best of the Deep Freeze despite 34 saves from Cam Ward.

Minneapolis loses their only home game of the week to the Jagr Mullets.

Lansing came into the weekend with a record of 3-4-1 sitting right in the middle of their division. With 2 highly skilled teams in Columbus and Wausau hitting the Captial Center it is sure to be a high flying weekend of hockey in Michigan!

Lansing started flat and was outshot 5-0 through the first few minutes of the game but Lansing netminder Devan Dubnyk came up big to keep the score tied up. Lansing’s first shot on goal would be from Rakell, and he would make it count as he opened the scoring for the Capitals and gave them an early 1-0 lead. Ansimov would add another tally just a few minutes later, and Rakell completed the sandwich adding his second of the game to put the Caps up 3-0. Late in the first period C-Bus would get a much needed goal to cut the margin to 2-1 at the ed of the first 20 minutes of play.

The second period saw Columbus come out with a much more physical style of play to try and get momentum on their side, but the Capitals D held strong blocking 7 shots in the period and getting out of the stanza still leading 3-1.

Columbus’ Nick Holden would take advantage of a Lansing turnover on the Power Play to create a breakaway chance, and was hauled down from behind resulting in a penalty shot for the visiting squad. Dubnyk came up with a big glove save at the 11 minute mark of the third to maintain a 2 goal lead for the Capitals.

After killing off the Lansing PP, Columbus’ Ryan McDonagh would fire one by Dubnyk to cut the lead to 3-2, and Columbus netminder Corey Crawford was absolutely stellar to keep his team in the game.

Despite a late fury, Columbus couldn’t tie things up and Lansing held on to a 3-2 victory to get the home stand started out on the right foot.

After an up and down battle just 48 hours ago Lansing would host Wausau, a highly skilled squad with some great fire-power up front. The Lumberjacks came out strong taking it to the Capitals early on, but goaltender Devan Dubnyk and some stellar defense kept Wausau off the board during the initial onslaught from their top 2 lines.

During a delayed penalty, the home team would take advantage of the extra attacker and sneak one by Lumberjacks goalie Mike Smith to get out in front 1-0. Just over a minute later though Zuccarello would unleash a one-timer from Zucker over the glove side of Dubnyk to tie the score at 1 apiece. Before Lansing could get things settled down, Palat continued the intense forecheck, stole the puck and burried a breakaway past Dubnyk to put the visiting squad up 2-1. Lansng then headed to the PP, and after some nifty passing, Tomas Vanek was able to carry the puck through the slot and bury the biscuit past Smith to get things all squared up at 2 to end the second period.

Whatever adjustments Wausau made in the locker room between the second and third were quite effective over the last 20 minutes of play. Anze Kopitar and Mike Fisher would each score in the first 5 minutes to put the road team up 4-2. Lansing thought they had answered back as Tyson Barrie fired one off the glove of Smith, but the call came in from Toronto, and after further review, the puck never fully crossed the line and momentum was quickly snatched back away from the Caps. Zukcer and Brown would each notch goals for the Lumberjacks on more odd-man rushes to put the nail in the coffin of the Capitals. Joel Ward would score one to give the home fans a glimmer of hope, but it was too little too late, and the Caps split their 2 home games dropping one to Wasau by a final of 7-3.

The Capitals came out of the weekend splitting at home 1-1. Backstrom, Rakell and Ward all played solid for the Caps, but the same can’t be said of Devan Dubnyk between the pipes. He struggled in both games over the weekend, and Head Coach Don Cherry did not look pleased leaving the arena on Saturday night. Will we see a change in the guard for the Capitals coming up?

Wausau also proved that they are one of the top teams in the league getting quality net-minding from Mike Smith and dominating both ends of the ice with Perry, Zuccarello, Zucker and Chara leading the way for the Lumberjacks.

Halloween night was truly of horrors for the X-Men. What began looking very promising as Joe Colborne put a goal past Antti Raanta just over a minute into the game, 10 minutes worth of penalties lead to 2 2nd period power play goals for Hampton. Scottsdale simply could not overcome being out shot over the 1st two period 24-12. Pulling the goalie down 2 goals with 2 minutes left lead to a barrage of shots for the X-Men and a goal cutting it to one, but they could not find the game tying goal before time ran out.

A reverse of fortune for the X-Men tonight as Bathgate piled up significant penalty minutes leading to 2 power play goals over the first 23+ minutes of the game with young superstar Connor McDavid scoring on one and assisting on the other. Bathgate then went into extreme aggressive mode which lead to Scottsdale domination. Pekka Rinne could not fend off odd man rush after odd man rush allowing the games first 5 goals over 38 shots. Jacob Markstrom lost out on potential star of the game honors by allowing 2 meaningless goals in the last minute and a half, but Scottsdale went on to win easily 5-2.

Scottsdale got off to a fast start lead by Derek Stepan’s 2 first period goals, but the 2nd and 3rd periods were all Long Beach. Jake Allen allowed 4 goals on 14 shots over those last 2 periods leading to the 4-2 Long Beach victory. Teuvo Teravainen and Leon Draisaitl lead Long Beach with one goal and one assist each.

A poor 1-2 showing for the Scottsdale X-Men this week.

Atlantic leading Indiana visits Columbus hoping to keep its streak going.

Minneapolis Deep Freeze also comes Columbus.

Indiana Sycamores @ Columbus Brew Jackets
IND 2 – CBJ 1

Minneapolis Deep Freeze @ Columbus Brew Jackets
MDF 4 – CBJ 5

Luongo had a relatively quiet night just facing 29 shots compared to the onslaught of 42 shots Ryan Miller faced. Ultimately letting up to goals to Jagr and Williams.

Minneapolis vs Colmbus had a lot less goal tending and turned into a goal fest. Getzlaf scored 2 for Minneapolis, but it wasn’t enough to overcome the 5 total goals of Columbus. Stars of the game: Getzlaf 2G 3PTs, Kutcherov 1G 2Pts, and McDonaugh 1G 2Pts

The first place Lumberjacks look to add to their division lead this week.
They have games with New Jersey and Alamo.

In a hard fought game the lumber jacks fall to New Jersey. Nursing a 3-2 lead in the 3 period. New Jersey strikes for 2 goals by Arvidsson and Chiasson. Winning the game 4-3 Arvidsson had 2 goals in the game.

Wausau prevails in a defensive battle 1-0. Fischer scores a goal in the second period. And Smith makes it stand up with 26 saves. Alamos Greiss gave up a goal and had 30 saves.

Wausau goes 1-1 at home this week.

Week #3: Ripon has a chance to get to .500 with three home games against Lansing, Minneapolis, and California.

Ripon 3 Lansing 2

Ripon 3 California 1

Ripon 3 California 2 (SO)

Ripon manages to sweep the home stand and move to 6-5 on the season.

The Nor’westers are still trying to find that right team chemistry. The play has been solid but inconsistent. Good 60 minute / 200 foot efforts should put a few more game in the win column. Just a single home game this week against the Scottsdale X-men. On paper we look stronger, and a couple of line-up changes hopefully will turn things around in Thunder Bay

Scottsdale (2) Thunder Bay (5) – Our first Hat-trick of the season by Tomas Tatar scoring goals 2, 3 & 4 of the season. Eberle and Gallagher score the other two for Thunder Bay. Lucic and Stephan score for the X-men.
Rookie defenseman Jaccob Slavin continues to play strongly on defense and 2nd line center Ryan O’Reilly is a monster winning 65% of his faceoffs.

Counting the away games, Thunder Bay won 3 of 4 games this week and appear to have settled down into a solid offensive team. The defense has been adequate. One Roster change was made moving forward as goalie Steve Mason has returned after a brief rehab stint in the Great Lakes league. Rookie Joonas Korpisalo heads back to Great Lakes league where he can polish his game.

Some bad ice at home prevented there games from being played by home team – so they were Simmed.

No Files or write ups from Indiana this week.  There home games were Simmed.