April 13 game recap vs Mt Vernon Ice Breakers

Score: 1-1 tie
Opposition: Pretty even match. The Ice Breakers had a few good skaters/puck handlers but also a few bad skaters.
Our team performance: In general, we played a good game, had some nice breakouts and didn't get stuck in our zone too many times. We did get lazy a few times which led to the Ice Breaker goal. But we came back with a nice effort.

We tied the Ice Breakers 1-1. I started feeling tired towards the end of the first period, but I started to get my legs back in the third period. As usual, I played left wing. My linemates were Moie (right wing) and Melissa (center).

I had at least two shots on net and two attempted shots that went wide. The first shot was me trying to backhand the puck from the left side of the net while standing two feet from the goalie. I lifted the puck nicely, but the goalie covered the entire net and blocked the shot easily. The other shot came on a little bit of a breakaway. Unfortunately, I was just so tired that my shot was weak and easily covered by the goalie. One attempted shot happened when I had a near breakaway on the left side of the ice. I charged past the blue line and took a shot but it went wide ride. The other attempted shot occurred when I was standing near the left side of the net. I got the puck with my back facing the goalie and tried to do a 180 turn and whip the puck towards net. The shot went wide left. I was trying to imitate a similar move by Joe Pavelski that netted a goal in Game 2 of the Calgary-San Jose playoff series.

As usual, I tried to plant myself in front of the crease and screen the goalie. There was a humorous moment where the goalie screamed "backdoor!" (which means the defense should clear attackers away from the crease.) The defender decided to shove me backwards into the goalie who screamed in response, "That's not helping!" Most of the time, the puck didn't come near the crease, so my efforts were useless. But there was one time when someone (Moie?) took a shot on net and I was in front of the goalie. I didn't really see the shot, so I didn't have a chance to deflect it and the goalie just covered up the puck.

The Ice Breakers scored in the second period on a breakway where our defenders were lazy about getting back. They had a 2 on 1 and the winger on the left simply passed to an attacker coming down the high slot who one-timed it high into the net. Pretty embarrassing.

In the last two minutes, our coach threw my line out on the ice along with Yuki and pulled our goalie. We faced off in the offensive zone. The puck squirted out of the zone past the blue line two or three times, but Lynn was always ready to clean up and dump the puck back in. I tried to help my teammates when they got trapped, but when the puck was far from the net, I setup in front of the crease to screen the goalie. Finally, my efforts paid off when my teammates started jamming the puck at the net. The goalie couldn't cover up with me standing in front of her. I remember seeing the puck squirt behind the goalie and sit perilously close to the goal line. Melissa skated over to the left side and banged the puck in.

Overall, I played a good game though my conditioning wasn't that great. I need to hit the gym, but I've been preoccupied with other things. I also made a bad decision when I came down the left side with the puck. Instead of passing to Melissa in the center, I dumped the puck. I don't know if Melissa was open, but I should have looked in her direction before dumping the puck. Melissa's been doing something new in this game where if she gets trapped on the boards behind the net, she'll toss the puck back along the boards. She did that twice and I wasn't able to get to the boards in time to retrieve the puck. Next time, I'll be better prepared.