As the puck dropped on the game between the Boston Bruins and the Pittsburgh Penguins in the first of a home-and-home series, just three points separated the two teams. Boston was holding onto a wild card slot, though their game on Monday saw them squeak out a point after going down two goals to the Edmonton Oilers. Given the firepower of the Penguins, it would be safe to expect a very close game.
Of course the Penguins have been struggling this season. Going into Wednesday’s game the Penguins had played just one other game under interim head coach Mike Sullivan. They would also be without defenseman Kris Letang—who had been placed on injured reserve with an undisclosed injury—as well as Marc-Andre Fleury, who is expected to miss at least one to two weeks due to concussion.
During Wednesday’s game, Jeff Zatkoff certainly gave the Penguins a chance backstopping his team. He gave up two goals in 29 shots, with the second the result of a ricochet that he couldn’t have stopped. Offensively the Penguins couldn’t buy a goal. If Tuukka Rask wasn’t denying them—to get his fourth shutout of the season (tied for the league lead)—then the posts were getting in the way.
Zdeno Chara and Brad Marchand
In the second period it should have been possible for the Penguins to get a goal. They outshot the Bruins 18 to 4 in the middle frame. In fact, watching the Bruins during that second period was like too many others this season, where they just can’t seem to bring their game in that middle frame. It looked like they had diagnosed that issue in Monday’s game with the Oilers, when they did play a strong second period And that was even one of the positives that Brad Marchand pointed out after the disappointing overtime loss. But had Rask not been so good and the Penguins not so hot, it could have been a tie game going into the third. It remains unclear why the Bruins are having such difficulties this season in the middle twenty minutes.
“I don’t know. I mean we had a solid second period against Edmonton last game. I don’t know if going the opposite direction on the ice makes a difference,” Adam McQuaid said with a laugh. “It shouldn’t. I guess at times we get away from our game, you know? It really makes a difference when w get pucks all the way in and guys can get in and we have guys that are strong on the forecheck and they can cause turnovers and stuff when we can get it in there, but when we don’t and other teams are countering coming back at us all the time. It’s a long change and sometimes guys get stuck out there a little longer than they should be and more breakdowns can happen.”
There are breakdowns and then there are situations where the wheels just come off. The Bruins took the two points because of how good Rask was in net for them. But as a team they cannot continue to rely that heavily on their goaltender. They will need to look at how they attacked the game in the second against Edmonton and figure out what they haven’t been doing in other games in that second period.
For now, they will practice on Thursday and head to Pittsburgh for the second of this series. They will play the Penguins at the Consol Energy Center on Friday night.
Full interview with Adam McQuaid can be seen here:
Consider for a moment, that you are under the age of 20 and you have already invested close to 15 years in achieving a goal that you are likely still two to four years from attaining, if at all. That goal? To play in the NHL. Along the way, you will play for a number of teams and have to decide if you will go the collegiate or the major juniors route, all in your quest. Now imagine that you are one of the most skilled players in your position in your country and you have been selected to compete for one of only 23 spots.
Such commitment to their craft is what is found in the current 28 players suiting up each day this week at Agganis Arena on the Boston University campus at the USA Hockey World Junior Championship camp. They have spent hours slapping pucks at targets and goals. They have been skating since they could walk. They watch what they eat—many having body fat percentages in the single digits. Some have chosen the collegiate road while others have moved to Canada to play major juniors. One of them even chose to travel to Switzerland to play professionally.
Talking with these players you can see the focus in their eyes. Watching them on the ice, you can see the passion that drives them to succeed on each shift, with each pass or block. And remember they aren’t even old enough to legally drink.
Chad Krys
“I think any time you get to come to a camp like this where you’re playing with the best players in the country, for our country, under 20, you know, I think you take a lot out of it, especially playing every day and being around guys like that,” shared forward Chad Krys. “You can learn from everybody, whether it’s on the ice, off the ice, take stuff from that so I think there’s a lot of things you can take out of it.”
His sentiments are echoed by the others vying for one of those final roster spots. Each has been selected from the hundreds of hockey players across North America to represent the United States in the 2016 IIHF World Junior Championship. But these players aren’t cocky or certain of their place on the team.
Matthew Tkachuk
“It’s a huge honor. Once I got the text from Mr. Johannson [GM Jim Johannson], you know, there was a little bit of a sigh of relief,” said Matthew Tkachuk. “I was stressing over it a little bit, but I feel like I did a good job the first half of the year to deserve to be here and as of right now I just have to keep working and hopefully I can make this team.”
Pre-tournament camp is approximately two weeks, the first week this year taking place in Boston and then, after the first cuts have been made, the remaining week will be in Finland. The final roster must be set by December 25 with the first of the round-robin games beginning on December 26. These players often sacrifice holidays with extended family to showcase their talents while representing their country. And there is not a lot of time to get chemistry with fellow players before they must compete in the quest to bring home a medal.
And while these players are all skilled in one or more ways, they also have a lot of respect for their fellow players.
“I’m excited. Getting to play with Tkachuk and [Auston] Matthews, two unbelievable players,” shared Alex DeBrincat on his current line mates in camp.
For some of these players, like Matthews, they experienced this camp and playing last year in this event. It doesn’t necessarily guarantee them a bye onto the team, but it does give them a little less apprehension because they already know what to expect in regard to the camp.
For Tkachuk, this is his first year, but he’s been fortunate to be sharing a room with Matthews, so he’s been asking him some questions.
“I’ve been peppering [Matthews’] brain a little bit. I’m rooming with him here in Boston. Ask him all the little stuff, like what to expect in practice; what he thinks the coaches will bring,” Tkachuk explained. “You know, just how hard it is if you make the team, the competition. And so far he’s giving me a lot of positive feedback and we’re going to keep talking about it and hopefully we can be teammates together.”
Drill time in camp
Most situations where you are in competition for a position—regardless of what the job is—having help from someone else who also wants that position is not the norm. Hockey players are unique in this regard. There is a camaraderie off the ice that sits on the bench like a duster while they forecheck, backcheck, block shots, and get in each other’s faces on the ice. Once they are off the ice again that is forgotten—they are a team.
Some of these hardworking players will experience disappointment after leaving it all out on the ice, getting cut from the roster. However, after the initial sting diminishes they will refocus on improving in those areas that the coaches felt they were lacking and will once again put their sights on that ultimate goal. Factoring in their youth, this is actually astounding as there are many adults who, when passed over for a promotion, will sulk or hold grudges for months if not years, making excuses and blaming others.
Listening to coach
Many of these players have already been selected in a recent NHL Draft, though this does not guarantee they will ever actually play at that level. There are also a few who will be eligible in this summer’s draft and playing in the World Junior Championship is just another way for them to show the scouts what they can do before that important weekend in June arrives.
Regardless of where they are along their precarious route to the NHL, their commitment, focus and drive are to be admired. Their skills are something that can cause uncontrollable gasps of awe when watching them. And best of all, these players come from all over the United States, proving how far hockey in this country has come—no longer relegated to those northern, snowy states.
The center that won two Stanley Cups with the Los Angeles Kings will join the Wild for the remainder of the 2015-16 NHL season.
Having spent time with the Edmonton Oilers and the Los Angeles Kings over the course of his career, Stoll signed with the New York Rangers in the summer of 2015. Centering the fourth line for the Rangers, Stoll is the first to admit that there are still areas of his game that he would like to improve.
After losing veteran players such as Chris Stewart over the summer, 33-year-old Stoll will hopefully fill a void that the Wild seem to have in that area. The Wild sit in fourth place in the Central Division and are currently holding on to the first wild card spot in the Western Conference.
Stoll has struggled a bit this season, posting just three points (1g-2a) in 29 games thus far, though he is known for his ability to win faceoffs, as he currently ranks seventh in the NHL with a 57.9 winning percentage. However, some of that could be a result of the Rangers movement of him amongst their lines before settling him in to that fourth line.
Throughout his career, Stoll has compiled a total of 382 points (141g-241a) in 821 games.
Stoll is expected to make his debut with the Wild against his former team, the New York Rangers, on Thursday, December 17, according to the Star Tribune.
For the second year, USA Hockey’s World Juniors Pre-Tournament Camp has returned to Boston, Massachusetts and to the Boston University Terriers campus where the roster of 28 hopefuls must prove their skill and commitment to the coaches and management. For the coaches and management they will have the unenviable task of paring that roster down to the 23-man roster they will showcase at the 2016 IIHF World Junior Championship taking place in Helsinki, Finland beginning on December 26, 2015.
Ron Wilson (Photo: USA Hockey)
The players flew in to Boston on Monday, had a meeting with management and the coaches Monday night and were on the ice Tuesday at Agganis Arena doing some drills and scrimmage. And while all eyes are on what is being currently referred to as the “first line” of Matthew Tkachuk, Auston Matthews, and Alex DeBrincat, as Head Coach Ron Wilson said after practice, he’s finding chemistry with all the lines, which looked like this:
Forwards:
Matthew Tkachuk – Auston Matthews – Alex DeBrincat
Sonny Milano – Christian Dvorak – Colin White
Kieffer Bellow – Nick Schmaltz – Brock Boeser
Ryan Donato – Ryan MacInnis – Anders Bjork
Scott Eansor – Clayton Keller – Ryan Hitchcock
Defensemen:
Zach Werenski – Brandon Carlo
Chad Krys – Charlie McAvoy
Louie Belpedio – Will Borgen
Casey Fitzgerald – Brandon Fortunato
Goalies:
Alex Nedeljkovic
Brandon Halverson
Tyler Parsons
“Well I just kind of put a lot of guys together I thought would be compatible and after one practice I was amazed at how compatible everybody was together,” said Wilson. “And the one line that surprised me, I would call it our fifth line, they were really good, so we’ve got a lot of possibilities to put guys together with different people as well.”
Some of these players are returning for their second chance to represent the United States in the World Junior Championship, but all of them are hungry to bring home some hardware.
The week of practice continues on Wednesday and will culminate with an exhibition game against the UMass-Amherst Minutemen on Friday night at the Mullins Center in Amherst before the group heads on to Finland for the second week of camp and the competition. Before the puck drops on their first game against Team Canada, decisions will have to be made of who must be cut to get the roster down to the required 23 men. Coach Wilson did indicate that he is hoping to carry eight defensemen, but a lot will be up to the players and what they bring to each practice.
See the complete interview with head coach Ron Wilson here:
What do you get when you combine a player with a career-high number of shots on goal and a goaltender with a career-high saves? You get a hockey game where the Boston Bruins host the Edmonton Oilers. You get a 20-shots-on-goal third period by the Bruins. You get a tie game that goes to overtime. And in the end the Oilers get to extend their winning streak to six games and the Bruins at least get a point for their efforts.
If you’re a Bruins fan, you don’t get a win at home—something that continues to plague the Bruins. After Monday night’s overtime loss, Boston now sits at 6-7-2 in home games this season.
“Yeah. It’s something we’ve talked a lot about, improving our home record,” said Patrice Bergeron afterwards. “And tonight was a great opportunity for us to do that and we didn’t come out with the win. So we definitely have to be better.”
“You know, you want to be a good team at home. You have to be a dominating presence and we haven’t been that so far this year,” Brad Marchand agreed.
For Marchand, his career-high nine shots on goal would ultimately result in the game-tying goal on that ninth shot, off a pass from recently acquired Landon Ferraro who had been promoted to the first line with Bergeron and Marchand in the third.
“It’s important that we got a point out of it, but I think that we played great hockey for 50 minutes,” said Ferraro. “But that’s been the problem that we’ve had—lapses at different points of the games and it costs us.”
And unfortunately the new three-on-three overtime play is just another situation where the opposing team can pounce on a mistake and make the team pay. And that’s what happened Monday night. Head coach Claude Julien could not put out the line that he probably would have preferred because they had just spent a considerable amount of effort at the end of the game. A mistake on Ferraro’s part resulted in an extremely short overtime period and an Oilers’ win, giving them a 5-2-0 record this season in the extra frame.
Cam Talbot
“We’ve been pretty fortunate on three-on-three that we’ve got a quick team, a skilled team, so I think it favors us a little bit,” said Oilers goaltender Cam Talbot.
While everyone who was dressed in black and gold would have preferred to be talking about a win, the insane abilities of Talbot are really what got the Oilers the win. He denied a career-high 47 of 49 shots, with 20 of those coming at him in the third period.
“Yeah, I think that might have been my best game all year,” Talbot said. “We got off pretty hard in the first there and they started off pretty strong like we expected them to. They are not the kind of team that will just sit back and let you take it to them. Give them credit. They’re a very resilient team.”
And perhaps that resiliency is a positive that needs to be acknowledged, despite the loss. Earlier in the season the Bruins would not have been as likely to come back the way they did on Monday night. Despite going into the second period on the penalty kill carryover from the Dennis Seidenberg hooking with just 39 seconds remaining of that first frame, the Bruins continued to bring their game.
“I think the way we battled till the end,” Bergeron said of positives to take from the game. “Every line was really contributing and having a lot of zone time and a lot of chances and that’s definitely something we can build on.”
Stick bender Brad Marchand (Photo: Alan Sullivan)
Marchand agreed with Bergeron and added some other important positives that the team needs to embrace and carry forward.
“We played a pretty full game. I thought we played pretty well pretty much the entire game. We did a really good job of coming back from a two-goal deficit,” he said. “And I thought we did a much better job in the second period where we’ve lacked at times in the season. So we’re getting better in that area and that’s something we want to build off of.”
However, there are definitely no rose-tinted glasses being worn in the Bruins locker room. While each player acknowledged the positives, they also pointed out that in the end the loss of any points is unacceptable.
“It’s still not good enough when you lose points, so there’s work to be done,” Marchand stressed.
Full interview with Patrice Bergeron after the game:
Saturday afternoon the Boston Bruins played host to the Florida Panthers in a matinee showdown. The Bruins were coming off their win in Montreal from Wednesday while the Panthers had defeated the Washington Capitals on Thursday. In the standings Florida was just one point behind the Bruins and both teams continued to strive for important points to put themselves in playoff positions, even with a lot of the regular season remaining.
While the press seemed concerned that the Bruins would feel an emotional let down after their big win against the Canadiens, the team was not pleased with their play on Wednesday night. Their mission on Saturday was to come out hard and dictate the pace of the game against the Panthers. Throughout the first period and much of the second that’s exactly what they did.
At the end of the first the Bruins had outshot the Panthers 10-6 and been effective in forcing the Panthers to the outside, giving them little space to move or think. At 11:35 of that first period, having been taken down in front of the Panther’s net, Ryan Spooner was just getting himself back into position when he found he had an opportunity to deflect a shot from Torey Krug getting the puck in and the Bruins up one, having reaped rewards for their attacking and focused play.
Roberto Luongo (Photo: Dinur Blum)
While no penalties were called in the first period, such would not be the case in the second. At 6:24 of the second, Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad tripped Zac Rinaldo and as the whistle blew and the teams were huddled in the corner, some pushing and shoving by both players saw each go to their respective box. When the penalties were finally assessed Ekblad was given two for tripping and two for roughing while Rinaldo got two for roughing. This put the Bruins on the power play—a position at which they have been quite profitable this season.
The zone time and cycling of the power play unit was as textbook as could be and with less than 30 seconds remaining on the man advantage, Spooner was able to get the puck five hole on Roberto Luongo to give the Bruins a little breathing room.
Through the first forty minutes, the Bruins had done a good job of controlling the game and outshooting the Panthers. In fact they had managed to prevent Jaromir Jagr from getting a single shot on goal in those first two frames. However, the third period would see the Panthers attempt to rally and the Bruins begin to give them more space.
It was clear as the teams began the third that the Panthers were the more determined team, outshooting the Bruins 14 to 5 by the final horn. The overall coverage by the team in black was completely different than it had been in the earlier periods—with many of the Panthers having plenty of time and space to set up shots. So it was not surprising when Reilly Smith, from the right point, managed to get one past Tuukka Rask with 6:04 remaining in regulation.
“They had a lot of movement in the [defensive] zone and they’re looking to make plays and it comes down to communicating with one another and finding those guys and kind of not running around,” Adam McQuaid said after the game. “When you’re starting to run around and, you know, you get two guys, one guy trying to cover for another guy and another guy tries to cover for that and they just kind of compound so you just kind of have to worry about your job and sort things out.”
While six minutes doesn’t seem like a lot of time in general, in hockey that’s plenty of time to change the outcome of a game. Fortunately as the clock continued to wind down, the Bruins began to “sort things out.”
Just after Panthers head coach Gerard Gallant had pulled Luongo for the extra attacker, the puck landed on Brad Marchand’s stick and it was soon in the empty net. Marchand had been buzzing all over the ice throughout the game, protecting the puck while on his knees, sprinting back to get a shorthanded shot on goal and had been all around valuable throughout the game.
As the buzzer sounded and the tune Dirty Water blared throughout the arena, Spooner had had a two-goal night, including the game winner and the Bruins had two very important points to push themselves a little higher in the standings.
I sat in the stands last night at Joe Louis Arena not thinking that I would be writing for thepinkpuck.com today. You see, I wasn’t there as a writer for this great hockey site. I was there with a friend of mine – a retiree from the same police department where I am currently an officer. In front of us sat a detective from our department. Other members of our department were scattered throughout the arena. It was law enforcement appreciation night; a chance for those who serve their communities every day to keep the citizens safe and sound to be recognized for their service. Now I am not usually one for these kinds of events. I am not opposed; it’s just that I didn’t go into my field to get public pats-on-the-back. With the beating that law enforcement has taken in the last year to year and a half however, it was nice to be reminded that those of us who work in law enforcement can still come together and rise above the foul taste left by a minimal fraction of a percentage point of “bad seeds.” They, unfortunately, are the ones who usually get the press.
1st Lt. Michael Shaw of the Michigan State Police; Asst. Chief Steven Dolunt of the Detroit Police Dept.; and, Capt. David Malloch of the Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources represent the agencies in Michigan that have lost officers in the line of duty in 2015. photo: Dave Reginek/NHLI
This year in Michigan, three agencies lost officers in the line-of-duty. The Michigan State Police, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, and the Detroit Police Department were all represented in recognition of officers from their departments that made the ultimate sacrifice in the name of the people they serve. I thank the Detroit Red Wings organization, and other NHL and AHL teams that host similar nights, for their keeping their memories alive and keeping communities aware that we are there to do our very best to keep all from harm. It was an honor to be honored by the sport that I love so much. Now…on to the game…
Both teams got right down to the business of hockey with the puck drop and Arizona rallied quickly with a goal by Klas Dahlbeck. Red Wings bench boss Jeff Blashill quickly threw a coaches challenge on the play however, and a review showed that Arizona defenseman Connor Murphy was offside and the goal was disallowed. Said Blashill of the play, “It was a good job by our video coach, David Noel-Bernier. He was real positive that it was offside and obviously a big moment in the game.”
The disallowed goal proved a turning point for the Wings, who have scored points in the past eight straight games and at 12:30 Justin Abdelkader (Assist: Larkin) ripped one past Coyotes goalie Mike Smith. Seven minutes later Niklas Kronwall, playing in his 700th career game, planted another in the back of the net assisted by Tomas Tatar and Pavel Datsyuk.
Niklas Kronwall tallies his 700th career game. photo: Dave Reginek/NHLI
Only 18 seconds after Kronwall’s goal, Red Wing Gustav Nyquist (Assists: Helm, Green) put yet another shot into the Coyote goal and the score was 3-0 Detroit. With three goals in the first period and two in quick succession, tempers and frustration were starting to rise. At 19:54 the Wings Smith and the Coyotes Chipchura tossed the gloves and fought until they fall to the ice and the linesman jumped on top. Both Smith and Chipchura were tossed for a 5-minute major for the fight, but Smith picked up an additional two minute penalty for slashing. Detroit also suffered two big roster losses in the period with Teemu Pulkkinen going out with an upper body injury, and later Drew Miller was out after a hard hit from Arizona’s Dahlbeck. When asked after the game if the players would be out for a while, Blashill uttered a simple, “yeah.”
The second period opened with the Coyotes still on the power play and a new man in the net in the form of Anders Lindback. The Coyotes were unable to capitalize on the one man advantage, however. Then at 5:52 Arizona’s Jordan Martinook (Assists: Downie, Ekman-Larsson) saw daylight over Red Wing goalie Jimmy Howard’s shoulder and sent one in to take the score to 3-1. That was the last time that Arizona would witness the board tick in their favor as Detroit took control of the rest of game. Not even two minutes later Red Wings Danny DeKeyser (Assists: Ericsson, Datsyuk) sounded the horn.
The third period fared no better for the desert team. Darren Helm slotted his first goal of the year unassisted at 4:28. Of Helm and his scoreless season to date, Blashill stated, “I think to score, he’s got to feel good about it and it’s got to take some pressure off. His process and his game’s been real good but there’s nothing like getting one and get that monkey off your back a little bit.” Neither team accrued any further points. The game ended with Detroit taking their first game in the past 7 of 8 in regulation play with a score of 5-1.
In a 3-1 win over the Winnipeg Jets Sunday, the Chicago Blackhawks picked up a win in a season that seems like last year on repeat while winger Patrick Kane found another spot in the record books.
The 14-9-4 Hawks aren’t terribly different from the 2014 Hawks at this point (18-8-1), especially considering the post-Cup roster changes and Duncan Keith‘s meniscus repair and missed time early on.
Kane leads the league with 42 points this season–16 goals and 26 assists. In these 22 consecutive games with at least one point, he’s tallied 36 points. That is more than any other player has for the season, with the Dallas Stars‘ Jamie Benn yielding 35 (18 goals, 17 assists).
Kane squeaked another point Sunday, when he assisted on Panarin’s empty-net goal as the game cloud wound down to earn the franchise record, breaking Hall-of-Famer Bobby Hull‘s 21-game trend.
“Anytime you can put your name with Bobby Hull or Denis Savard or Eddie Olcyzk, you’ve got to be doing something right,” Kane said after Sunday’s win. “Support from the team was awesome; I think everyone was excited for me too. Good that it came with a win, too. That’s a huge win for us.
He has had at least one point in every game since October 17 against the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Kane was chosen as the NHL’s first star of the month for November after racking up 23 points, giving the Hawks a 7-3-3 record for the month and pushing them into third in the Central Division.
Now, the Hawks are fifth in the Central–one point behind the Nashville Predators, who they’ll be facing at home tonight and in the Music City Thursday.
The Central Division is tight right now, while the Stars have a lofty lead with 42 points, the St. Louis Blues have 34 points, and the Minnesota Wild and Predators are tied with 33 while the Hawks are chasing at 32. The Jets are two wins behind with 28 and the Colorado Avalanche have 25 points.
Roman Josi has seven goals and 13 assists this season.
Ryan Ellis has three goals and six assists versus the Blackhawks–he fares better against them than any other team.
Shea Weber has 14 career goals against Chicago, again the most scored against another team.
In the last 12 games, the Predators have held opponents to fewer than 20 shots on goal.
The matchup:
Chicago has 2.74 goals per game while the Preds have 2.59, while goals-against are 2.56 for the Hawks and 2.59 for the Preds. The Hawks are 21.6 percent effective to the Preds’ 21.3 percent on the power play, while Chicago also edges on the penalty kill 80.3 percent to 74.7 percent.
For Chicago, Trevor Daley is out following a scary knee-to-head collision in Sunday’s game. He’s listed as day-to-day.
#Blackhawks lines Teravainen-Toews-Hossa Panarin-Anisimov-Kane Bickell-Rasmussen-Shaw Desjardins-Kruger-Garbutt Mashinter, Dano not on lines
The All-Star Fan Vote has started. From today, Dec. 1, fans have one month to cast ballots for one player in each division–the winner of which captain his team in the NHL All-Star three-on-three tourney Jan. 31.
“Fans will be permitted to select as few as one player and a maximum of four players per ballot,” according to an NHL media release.
The ballots do, however, limit voters to one selection, regardless of position, per division.
As for changes this year, the NHL is boasting more high-tech options.
“The ballot will include enhanced interactive features, all designed to simplify the player search options for fans, including filtering and sorting by real-time statistics, position, team, and a player’s trending status.”
There’s also a fan sweepstakes–where eligible participants in the U.S. and Canada can win a trip to the 2016 Honda All-Star festivities in Nashville.
For broadband and tablets: NHL.com/vote features interactive content in English and French accessible worldwide.
Mobile: Also worldwide, mobile users can cast ballots using NHL.com/vote with any mobile carrier or using the official NHL app on iOS or Android.
Social media: After visiting NHL.com/vote, users can share their selections and invite other users to join via Facebook and Twitter. They can also join the All-Star conversation with #NHLAllStar
Each user may vote 10 times daily until 11:59:59 p.m. ET Jan. 1, 2016.
The remaining 40 All-Stars will be chosen by NHL Hockey Operations, with at least one player per team, according to a prior media release. The winningest coaches (based on points) in each division on Jan. 9 will lead each team for the game.
Live television coverage of the Honda NHL All-Star Skills Competition starts at 6 p.m. CT Saturday, Jan. 30 and the Honda NHL All-Star Tournament starts at 5 p.m. CT Sunday, Jan. 31 on NBCSN in the U.S. and Sportsnet and TVA Sports in Canada.
The action began quickly with Grand Rapids scoring the first goal of the game at 3:29. The goal, by right-wing Mark Zengerle (Assists: Russo, Ouellet) launched a cascade of teddy bears onto the ice in support of this years “Teddy Bear Toss” game to benefit Hug-A-Bears of Kent County, a charity that provides bears as comfort to children who have been victims of traumatic events such as crime or disaster. Hundreds of bears were thrown and collected off the ice.
Once the bears were cleared the action resumed quickly with Griffins right wing Daniel Cleary, on conditioning from the Detroit Red Wings, going to the penalty box at 5:27 for high sticking. The Monsters were unable to capitalize on the power play however, and the game remained in Grand Rapids hands. At 9:11, Lake Erie’s defenseman Jaime Sifers was charged with holding and the Griffins had the one man advantage. Like Grand Rapids before them, Lake Erie was strong on the penalty kill and the power play proved a non-event for the boys from the mitten state. Finally, at 15:24 Lake Erie struck when left-wing Trent Vogelhuber blasted a shot past Griffins goalie Tom McCollum and the score was tied at 1-1 and remained so through the remaining four and a half minutes of first period play.
The second period saw a lot more physical action between these rivals with a total of five penalties and a fight that resulted in the Griffins Mitch Callahan going to the box at 6:00 on a roughing penalty. This penalty had already been preceded by two other Grand Rapids violations, one at 1:03 when defender Xavier Ouellet sat for holding, and another at 3:40 when center Louis-Marc Aubrey got caught for a delay of game on a faceoff violation. In both cases however, the Griffins remained solid and defeated the Monster penalty plays. Unfortunately for the winged beasts of west Michigan, the Callahan penalty proved to be the Monsters reward as their hard work on the penalty play put them up 1-2 at 7:00 on a goal by left-wing Nick Moutrey (Assists: Tynan, Kukan). The aggressive action continued with Lake Erie’s right-wing Josh Anderson being sent off for two minutes at the 13:20 mark for a cross-check. Four minutes later the Monsters’ Dean Kukan also caught bench time for holding. This time, the Griffins made good on the power play opportunity and left-wing Eric Tangradi (Assists: Miele, Sproul) slipped the little rubber disk past Lake Erie net minder Anton Forsberg to even things at 2.
The third period opened almost immediately with a Grand Rapids penalty as defender Nick Jensen was penalized for roughing at :34 but the Griffins stayed strong on the penalty kill. At 6:37 Monsters D-man Dillon Heatherington was penalized for interference, but their penalty kill was too effective for the Griffins to overcome. Two more penalties and power plays marked the period, one at 7:44 by Ryan Sproul of the Griffins and then at 13:28 by the Monsters Lukas Sedlak, but neither team was able to convert on the power plays. Despite a final minute and a half dominated by strong and solid play by Grand Rapids the third period closed with the teams locked in a 2-2 tie and the game headed to a three-on-three five minute overtime period.
Both teams entered the overtime period strong and solid but smart enough to avoid the penalties that would have dangerously depleted their numbers. McCollum and Forsberg remained solid in their nets, deflecting multiple shots until the 2:02 mark when the Griffins Mitch Callahan, on a well-orchestrated play put the puck past Forsberg and ended the game, Griffins 3, Lake Erie 2.
Griffins Win 3 – 2 in Overtime
Throughout this event, both teams played hard and aggressively. Both teams had exceptional plays and other moments when even the most simple of passes just seemed to bobble off the sticks of their intended targets. Equally, while the play was aggressive and was reflected in the high number of penalties and power play opportunities, both teams excelled in penalty killing and the game was overall a very fair battle of wills. Named as the three stars of the game were GRG Goalie Tom McCollum who put in a solid performance; GRG Left Wing Eric Tangradi for his power play goal and solid play throughout the game; and, Mitch Callahan for the game-winning OT shot.
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