The Boston Blades (CWHL) rallied for 6-2 and 5-2 wins this weekend, sweeping their first weekend series at home against the Toronto Furies.
On Saturday, in front of a crowd of more than 250, Jillian Dempsey scored a hat trick to propel the Blades to their 6-2 win.
She found the back of the net first in the first period, assisted by Kaleigh Fratkin and Hilary Knight. Fratkin would add her own scoring touch four minutes into the second period when she put a puck in the Furies’ net for a 2-0 lead. Dempsey scored her second goal six minutes later for a 3-0 lead.
The Furies would fight back, though, and Mallory Deluce put a puck past Blades goaltender Genevieve Lacasse on the power play. The Blades responded with Rachel Llanes beating the Furies netminder for a 4-1 lead. Dempsey added her third goal late in the second period to further the Blades’ lead to 5-1. Ashely Cottrell sealed the win for the Blades with a sixth goal in the third period.
On Sunday, the Blades killed four penalties and capitalized on one power play in their 5-2 win. The Blades took a 2-1 lead after oner period, with goals from Fratkin (assisted by Jessica Koizumi and Jordan Smelker) and Llanes (assisted by Blake Bolden) for the Blades and Carolyne Prevost (assisted by Natalie Spooner) for the Furies.
In the second period, Julie Allen put a puck behind Brittany Ott to tie the game at two-all. But the Blades responded with another goal from Llanes (assists from Alyssa Gagliardi and Monique Lamoureaux) for the 3-2 edge. The Blades extended their lead to 4-2 when Tara Watchorn put a puck behind Furies goaltender Sami Jo Small, assisted by Hilary Knight.
Jillian Dempsey added the fifth goal in the third period, on the power play, assisted by Meghan Duggan and Hilary Knight for the 5-2 win.
Dempsey finished the weekend with four goals. Knight finished the weekend with four assists.
The Blades will host the Montreal Stars next weekend, Nov. 22 at 8 p.m., and Nov. 23 at 2 p.m. at UMass Boston.
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Image by Flickr user bridgetds
After the OT loss against the Los Angeles Kings Saturday afternoon, the Anaheim Ducks were looking to make a major comeback on Sunday against the Florida Panthers. They reached a franchise record of five consecutive games reaching overtime and hoped that Sunday’s game would be the first won in regulation since November 2. With their injured reserve list still a mile long, and adding and subtracting players almost every day, it really was hard to tell how the night was going to go between the two speedy teams. The Panthers quickly took the lead and had the Ducks trailing behind them for the whole game.
The first period definitely proved to be a slow one between both teams. The Panthers’ eventual burst of speed proved to come in handy by holding the Ducks to only one goal during the entire period from defenseman Hampus Lindholm. Florida’s only goal of the first came from center Vincent Trocheck. After going back and forth for the first 20 minutes, the Ducks showed that they needed to start taking advantage of the many opportunities they had instead of sitting back and playing it safe. With a lot of Anaheim’s big guys out of the line up for a while, Florida seemed to know that this was the time to take advantage and get as many goals on Andersen as they could.
Anaheim upped their speed the minute the second period started but the Panthers charged them with the second goal of the game from right wing top scorer Brad Boyes. They continued to be a challenge, proven by the third goal of the night, scored quickly after the second, by Panthers’ center Nick Bjugstad. The Ducks had hold of the puck many times throughout the second period, but had trouble keeping it and shooting due to the drive that the Panthers had tonight. Right after the Panthers scored their third goal of the night, Jason LaBarbera replaced Frederik Andersen in net in the hopes that, with the rate he has been going, the game could completely turn around. But Jonathan Huberdeau and Brad Boyes would score on #30, extending the Panthers lead by another 2 goals.
With the score at 5-1 heading into the third, things had to hit overdrive soon or the Ducks would have suffered two losses back to back. LaBarbera’s slow reactions to goals in the second period drove Andersen back into the net. The Ducks suddenly shot back to life and had the puck in the Panthers’ zone for most of the beginning of the third, until Bjugstad managed to slip one past Andersen for his second goal of the night. Once again, Matt Belesky had another very good opportunity to make it into the net but just missed it by a little bit. Andrew Cogliano managed to get his second goal of the season with just 1:30 left in the game but it still ended in a loss for the Ducks at 6-2 and 29 overall shots on goal.
The Ducks seemed to have their luck looking up again with right wing star Corey Perry, and Kyle Palmieri back from being on the injured reserve list, and Norfolk, respectively. This was Palmieri’s first game back all season, and he was already driven into the wall by Colby Robak. After being diagnosed with first flu symptoms, then officially the mumps, Perry was finally ready to come back after tonight’s scratch list grew again with Tim Jackman out due to the flu and Devante Smith-Pelly gone with an upper body injury. The Ducks missed many shots that could have been easy goals, and that problem needs to be resolved before this coming week’s games. This was the first meeting between Florida and Anaheim this season, so there is time to turn this around at Calgary and Vancouver this week and before these teams play each other again in February.
Photo: From NJ.com
Don’t give him a break as in “cut him some slack,” or “forgive him,” or “overlook his mistakes.” Give him a literal break. Take Cory Schneider out for a couple of games.
The man has started every single one of the New Jersey Devils’ 18 games so far this season. 18! The Devils are the only team in the entire league that have started the same goalie for every game. This streak of 18 starts for Schneider is the second-longest in franchise history for a goalie, behind only Martin Brodeur.
It may have worked for Brodeur at some point in his 22-year career, but it’s not working for Schneider or the Devils, who hold an 8-8-2 record this season. 18 points in 18 games. It’s not bad and it could certainly be worse, but if you give Schneider a break at some point it could also be much, much better.
Schneider ranks low in the two most important statistical categories for goaltenders – 30th in goals against average and 31st in save percentage. The only categories he tops are games played (18), games started (18), and time on ice – over 1,000 minutes. This is absurd. Scott Clemmensen, who isn’t even on the Devils active roster right now, has seen 37 minutes of ice time in 2 games, and Keith Kinkaid has played 27 in the same amount of games.
The worst part of it is that Kinkaid isn’t even a bad goaltender. He went 24-13-5 in 43 games for the Albany Devils last season, with a .912 save percentage and 2.29 GAA. It’d be different if the Devils’ backup goalie wasn’t good, but Kinkaid is, and he deserves a chance to play a game every once in awhile.
The Devils are trying to move forward with Schneider as a number one goalie after last year’s bad situation with him and Brodeur. That’s understandable; the team needs to have a life after Brodeur. What they don’t need is to wear Schneider down and start him in every game. Prior to this season, where he’ll likely be pushed to start 70 games or so unless head coach Peter DeBoer realizes his mistakes, Schneider hadn’t played more than 45 games in a season.
The reality is that Schneider just isn’t Brodeur. While Brodeur was able to play at least 70 games in 12 of his seasons with New Jersey, Schneider’s not that kind of player. Not yet, anyways. It’s bad coaching on DeBoer’s part if he thinks he can throw a goalie, who’s only once played more than half a season in one year, into the fire to play so many games.
Cory Schneider’s a great goaltender. Everyone has seen what he can do when he’s on top of his game. But he’s just not yet capable of going into 18 straight games (or more, as the season may bring) and being on top of his game each time. Unfortunately for the Devils, who are still inconsistent offensively, they need him on top of his game to have a chance at success.
Image by Jeff Gross
The Los Angeles Kings evened the score against their rivals to the south, the Anaheim Ducks at the Staples Center on Saturday, November 15th. The two teams met for just the second time this season, with the first meeting occurring just three days earlier, but in Anaheim. The Kings took the lead early in that game which took place on November 12th, but the Ducks fought hard and came from behind and won it 6-5 in a shootout. Their second match-up also went all the way to overtime, but this time, the Kings were determined to come out on top and squeaked out the difference maker in OT to win it 3-2.
There was no score in the first period, but Emerson Etem got the Ducks on the board first, scoring his second goal of the season. The Kings retaliated quickly, Tyler Toffoli scoring the shorthanded goal to even the score. Anaheim took the lead again late into the period, Ryan Kesler making it 2-1 Ducks on top with his sixth goal of the season. Anze Kopitar scored on a power play for Los Angeles to tie the game at 2-2 with 10:35 left in the third. A winner could not be decided in regulation, so the game went into overtime. The Kings went on the power play 23 seconds into the OT and Jarret Stoll netted the game winner during the extra-man advantage. Frederik Andersen made 34 saves on 37 shots for Anaheim, while Jonathan Quick stopped 27 of 29 shots.
Stoll’s overtime goal ended a scoring drought for the 32-year old forward who hadn’t scored since April 9th. Los Angeles head coach Darryl Sutter shuffled up some of his lines for the match-up against the Ducks, placing Jeff Carter on a line with Kopitar and Marian Gaborik.
Corey Perry was out of the line-up again for Anaheim with the mumps. He began skating with the team Thursday, but did not play against the Kings. He is speculated to return to the line-up soon, perhaps as early as Sunday, November 15th when the Ducks host the Florida Panthers. The two times we have seen the Kings and Ducks play, it has been an exciting three periods of hockey. Both teams play a fast-paced, physical game supported by strong goaltending performances from both ends. The Kings advance to within two points of the Calgary Flames and the Vancouver Canucks and are four points behind the Ducks.
(photo: lightning.nhl.com)
In the November 13th game against the San Jose Sharks, the Tampa Bay Lightning were back in black wearing their new black third jersey. As a gift each fan was welcomed to the game with a black ‘Be the Thunder’ t-shirt on their seats presented by Chase.
Chase is also helping the Lightning by presenting a new 4 game plan that starts at $100. Fans who purchase tickets to any 4 Saturday games will receive a free Ryan Callahan Reebok Official player t-shirt. Paying with your Chase credit or debit card will also secure you a Ryan Callahan signed puck. Back in Black plan t-shirt vouchers and puck can be picked up at the Lakewood Ranch Client Services Desk starting November 13. Plans can be bought here.
It is in their earlier black jerseys that the Lightning won the Stanley Cup and the team is hoping that the change will bring them luck. Fans were torn between whether they liked the jerseys or not, with the majority swinging towards liking them.
Thursday night’s game saw Tyler Kennedy getting his first goal of the season at 10:37 into the second period in front of a crowd of 19,004. Standing at 9-7-2 on the season, San Jose outshot the Lightning 39-33 and kept a 31-17 advantage after two periods. The Lightning are 11-4-2 on the season, but are 5-3-1 against the Western Conference.
The Lightning got on the board in the third when Steven Stamkos deflected his 11th goal of the season past Sharks goaltender Antti Niemi. This cut San Jose’s lead 2-1. They couldn’t rally to get the win and fell to the Sharks for the third straight time. The last time the Lightning managed to defeat the Sharks was was in the 2011-12 season in a 6-5 overtime victory on Feb. 16, 2012.
Tampa plays one last home game on Saturday against the New York Islanders at Amalie Arena before they go on the road. They will go on the road for three games when they play the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on Monday.
You can purchase the new jersey and a variety of other Bolts gear here.
What do you think of the black jerseys?
(photo: Dinur Blum)
After playing three games out of seven match-ups on the road, the Sharks will be without goaltender, Alex Stalock for the remainder of this long road trip. Stalock was placed on injured reserve with a lower body injury Wednesday morning. Troy Grosenick has been recalled from the Sharks’ AHL team in Worcester to take Stalock’s place on the roster.
Stalock was placed on injured reserve on Wednesday, November 12th following the Sharks’ loss to the Florida Panthers. Stalock was slated to start against the Panthers, but was at the last-minute replaced by Antti Niemi. Stalock’s injury was sustained during San Jose’s comeback victory against the Dallas Stars on November 8th. He was involved in a confrontation by the net late in the third period when Stars’ left-winger Antoine Roussel took out his frustration on Stalock by shoving the netminder to the ice. Once Stalock hit the ice, he remained there for the duration of the scrum that took place after. He eventually got back up and finished the remainder of the game.
It was an odd sequence of events, starting with Stalock catching the puck, then tossing it up in the air like a baseball and attempting to bat it back into play. While Stalock’s attempt to hit a home run with the puck is unconventional and perhaps ill-advised, Roussel’s actions crossed the line. The Sharks immediately engaged in a brief altercation following the incident with Roussel which involved San Jose defenseman, Justin Braun. During the bout, Braun was surprised by a punch to the face from Roussel. The 200 pound left-winger then left the ice with two minutes for roughing plus a ten-minute misconduct. Roussel was later fined $5,376.34 by the NHL Department of Player Safety not for knocking down Stalock, but for “sucker-punching” Justin Braun.
Stalock was sent back to San Jose after the Sharks’ visit to Sunshine, Florida. It was announced on Thursday November 13th that Stalock would have minor knee surgery and be out 2-4 weeks. Antti Niemi made the start on Thursday against the Tampa Bay Lightning with Grosenick as his backup. Grosenick has spent this season in Worcester and has a .908 save percentage with 2.73 GAA in 10 games played.
This is an unfortunate turn of events for the Sharks who have been up and down thus far on this road trip. The Sharks will be on the road for twelve days and would have benefited greatly from being able to rotate their goaltenders without having to compromise consistency. Now, with Stalock on the IR, Niemi will likely have a much heavier workload.
Stalock’s stint on the IR will be much longer than the Sharks’ would like, as he will need sufficient time to recover from his surgery. The 25-year old Grosenick will need to be ready to jump into games when he is needed, and maybe even make a few starts in order to give Niemi a break every once in awhile. The Sharks’ defense needs to be aware that they might have a tired goalie between the pipes and will need to be even more vigilant than usual to keep the puck from reaching Niemi.
Puck possession is always important, but for San Jose, it just became even more of a priority. The Sharks need to be able to maintain as much puck possession as possible, spend more time in their opponents zone than in their own. It’s going to be a long road trip for the Sharks, especially without Stalock. But the best they can do now is count on Niemi and Grosenick to step up, do what they can to become a defensive powerhouse and hope for a speedy recovery from Stalock.
Hockey isn’t like other sports.
I don’t mean that it’s better or worse. But it’s structured differently, and we raise our kids immersed in it in a way that football and basketball and soccer don’t. Billeting, juniors, and hockey culture as a whole demand all of you. If you want to “make it” in the professional and national level, there is no “off season.” Kids play on multiple teams; they billet away from their families, the team becoming their entire support system; and NCAA hockey doesn’t have quite the same pull that NCAA basketball and college football do. To “make it” in the NHL, you have to essentially have a professional mindset from the first day they put you in skates.
Nathan Horton grew up in that world. He played minor hockey with Daniel Paille (who he’d later play with again, in Boston); he went second overall in the 2001 OHL draft; his profile, at age 16, by Hockey’s Future opened with the line, “Players like the Oshawa Generals Nathan Horton don’t come around all the time.” Like any good player, hockey was everything.
Nathan Horton hasn’t played hockey since April 8.
“I can’t stand up like a normal person; I can’t bend over,” Horton told Aaron Portzline of the Columbus Dispatch. “I can’t run. I can’t play with my kids. To get in and out of the car, I’m like a 75-year-old man … so slow and stiff. I can’t sleep at night. I try to lay down and my back seizes up and I can’t move, so sleeping is out. I’m like a zombie in the daytime.”
A little over a year ago, Horton walked away from a contract with top dogs Boston Bruins to help Columbus build something. He talked about his affection for the city, for the atmosphere; he wanted to be a part of what he saw Columbus doing. From the get-go, Horton has been that kind of player, on any team he’s been on: the guy you can trust on the ice, the guy who gets it done. Exactly the type of player you want on a team that’s looking to grow up.
He played 35 games on that dream, before a slew of injuries derailed it. Horton, who’s fought back through two concussions and injuries in his shoulder, knees, legs, and hands, tried to fight through this, too.
“I couldn’t get my socks on,” Horton told Portzline. “I could barely tie my skates. But I’ve played through stuff my whole career. I kept going.”
When you’re raised to do one thing, to excel at it beyond all else, the idea of giving it up must be impossible. But the surgery required to fix the issue would keep Horton off the roster for the rest of his life. Said Horton, “I don’t want to have surgery, because of what that means. I don’t want to live with this pain, but I don’t want to make that decision. It’s hard for me to say that, at 29 years old, I’m done. I mean, really? Done at 29?”
Obviously, though it would be a shame for a player like Horton to be taken out of the game forever, his health comes first. It has to. Fans and rivals alike have taken to Twitter to express support for the Blue Jackets forward. As defenseman Jack Johnson told the Columbus Dispatch last month, “We’re not giving up hope. We’re not giving up on him at all.”
(photo credit: Dinur Blum)
Six seconds into a game, and the gloves drop. The Dallas Stars Captain Jamie Benn and Coyotes Forward Martin Hanzal go to the box on fighting majors. 96 seconds later, defenseman Connor Murphy nets a wrist shot and puts the Arizona Coyotes up on the board 1-0. Several minutes later (not even 5 into the period) two more men get sent to sit in the sin bin for 5 minutes for fighting. Now we’re 5 minutes into the game and Dallas gets a holding call on them. Coyotes are on their first power play of the game….The first of many.
One might think that the first period was setting the Coyotes up for a successful game. Dallas was on a 7 game loosing streak, and Arizona was leading the game, drawing penalties and keeping the puck in their offensive zone. The ‘Yotes 17 shots in the first topped their 19 shots in the whole game against the Islanders on Saturday night.
The second period was a different story. The Stars were still racking up the penalties, Jamie Benn finishing the second with his third trip to the box. The Coyotes were still not producing on the power play; this is something we’ve seen in the past several games. The Coyotes put another on the board for good measure. Joe Vitale got awarded his first of the season, and first with the team (to which Vitale said it was “great…But at the end of the day it’s just about winning hockey games here and we didn’t do the job tonight.”). Everything still looked good, more powerplay opportunities, but the shots they had weren’t getting in. They led 2-0…That is until Stars center Tyler Seguin put in his 11th goal of the season on a turnover to make the deficit smaller. A poor call for interference on Connor Murphy opened the door for the Stars to use their strong PP line against the Coyotes penalty kill. Not a minute after his first goal, Seguin produced on their PP and tied the game up at 2-2.
The third period was different. The Stars had some life to them, and were ready to break free from their slump. Nothing much happened in the first ten minutes besides another PP for the Coyotes that they couldn’t execute on. At 15:19, the Stars took the lead with a goal from Erik Cole.
Coyotes Mikkel Boedker would have none of that, and snuck one past Lehtonen to tie it up. When the Coyotes got a power play with barely 2 minutes left to play, things were looking up. It’s the perfect textbook win. Player A gets a goal on the PP with barely any time left to win the game….. That’s what it looked like, but that’s not what it was. A bad break, and the defenders can’t jump on it soon enough. Stars’ Ryan Garbutt got a breakaway and sunk a short-handed goal to take the lead 4-3. The Coyotes got close, but they just can’t do what they need to, and fall to the Stars 4-3.
The Power Play
What started the season off as spectacular, is now a painfully unproductive part of the Coyotes game. When the ‘Yotes couldn’t produce on the 5-on-5 and pretty much only on the power play the first several games, there was a need to fix their regular play, not the PP. Fast forward a couple weeks and you have a team thats been in a PP goal drought for quite a few games. They had 6 chances in last nights game, yet they couldn’t execute on any of them. They are getting shots, but if those shots aren’t getting anywhere, there isn’t much help from these opportunities to score.
The short-handed goal that Dallas scored to win the game was “inexcusable from our power play,”says Tippett. He then went on to say that the team was almost not in the right mindset, they expected that the power play would be effective and they could win the game. No one expected the shorty. Tippett said that the loose puck that lead to the breakaway was kind of just looked at as they were icing the puck, so the Coyotes just stood around. Big mistake there.
Coach Dave Tippett is not too fond of their PP saying, “Probably since all you guys started writing about how good it was, it’s just gone downhill from there. And I thought it was poor, even before we gave up the shorty (short-handed goal), and so we are going to have to look at some stuff.” The question he faces now, is what sort of changes he needs to make to give the team the execution it once had.
Road Trip Ahead
The Coyotes leave for a three game Canadian road trip, today. They start of up in Calgary tomorrow night, then Vancouver and lastly, they hit Edmonton before they travel back home for a game against the Capitals.
The team is aware that there is a quick turnaround after their loss. They see the weaknesses in their game, and hopefully can put the knowledge of what needs to be improved on, into action.
They have three games to get to the pace of game that they need to play to get wins. This road trip could be a rough one, considering a back to back game in Calgary and then Vancouver, but they can’t show signs of wear out on the ice. That happened in the game against the Islanders, and they just couldn’t produce to get the ‘W’.
They need to produce more on the power play. Being there in the net on rebounds is also essential. The amount of times the puck bounces out, and they could have a chance is incredible. Towards the end of last nights game, it seemed there was some improvement, but it could obviously use even more work.
Next Home Game
The Coyotes are back at Gila River Arena on November 18th to face off against the Washington Capitals. Last game against the Caps, Dubnyk was in goal and the ‘Yotes pulled out a 6-5 win. Can the Coyotes pull another one at home, this time?
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