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| this one was actually a goal, but wasn't called as such |
Well, game 2 was a little different than game 1 - wasn't it?
Lets look at the highlights.
They start off with the Rutowski goal, which is as simple as drive the net and pick up the rebound (and don't get caught deep as the D man).
Lots more saves by Lotz.
More good examples of how you can do whatever you want to Leipsic with no fear of penalty. I don't know why I think it will reset each game - you'd think I would know better.
That MacPherson goal was a nice shot for sure. He benefited from two big Minnesota boys camped out in Lotz's kitchen - which offers glimpses of the future, hopefully. I was making an effort to count his shifts, and I may have missed some, but I counted 4 shifts for MacPherson in this game. Even after he scored, he didn't get more ice time.
There's plenty of reasons they don't let me behind the bench, but I don't get that. The 'Hawks have more good players than there's ice time for, and have maintained a delicate balance all year of lineup changes. Personally, I'm on team Kirill: I'd like to see Vorborev in that spot, at least on a rotational basis. If you are going to play MacPherson, that's fine, but then play him then. It looks like the 'Hawks are going to lean on him as a 19 next year (they will be replacing 3 D men) - so get him some experience now. If you can't give him a regular shift against the Silvertips, what does that mean for later rounds?
How 'bout that open ice Iverson hit? Nice and clean.
Classic momentum swing on that Rattie breakaway goal. Hard working penalty kill, then Rutowski steps out of the box, puck comes right to him, sends in arguably the best sniper in the league all alone. That was a NHL shot against a WHL goalie. You love to see the PK get rewarded like that.
The Everett goal was disappointing. There's reasons that shutouts are rare, but the 'Hawks were in a good position to battle for one in game 2. Its easy for me to say, but Jones & Wotherspoon are too good to allow the opposition to walk in from the corner like that - powerplay or not. Its still only one goal, but it sure seemed like they could have shut down that play before it started.
The Pouliot PP goal tells the tale of several powerplays from this game. Good things happen when you get pucks on net with simple plays. Pretty sure all Lotz could see at that point was 28 right in his grill. This play immediately brought me back to the middle of the 1st, where the 'Hawks had 1:30 of 5-on-3 time. If memory serves, the 'Hawks were sitting on 6 shots on goal at the expiration of that powerplay - I'm not sure what they had to start it, but in my book you should get 6 shots in that 1:30 - not half of a period. There has to be something more complicated than us everyday fans understand to powerplays, but we just want to see them shoot the damn puck. Shoot the puck.
In the regular season, this team had the #10 PP at home, but the #2 PP on the road. I'm not sure how they did on 2 man advantages, but we may have a skewed view of how the powerplay works due to the 5% difference when we don't get to watch them with our own eyes. After two playoff games, the PP is clicking at 27.3% - which is hard to bitch about.
The "O" had some sweet pictures of this game. Paul Buker's piece pointed out that the 'Hawks set a franchise record for least playoff shots against.- which is always a good time.
We had a nice discussion about Fredrik Olofsson, who was in attendance on a recruiting trip. He had a pretty good year on Dominic Turgeon's old team.
The Everett paper does a live blog - which might be fun to drop by sometime. Nick Patterson is their beat writer, although I get the impression he didn't come down for the first two games.
We'll be chatting during game 3 right here. Our gracious host, Dylan Bumbarger would love to have you swing by.
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