UNIVERSITY PARK- On Friday night Penn State hockey opened up their season and christened their new ice arena with a 4-1 win over Army.
On September 17, 2010, the university announced that Buffalo Sabres owner, Terry Pegula would be making an $88 million donation to build an arena. The year after, the team transitioned from Division 1 Club to NCAA D1 while they began construction on their new arena. This year, the Nittany Lions join the Big 10 and debut their new 6,000 seat arena.
Penn State fans filed into the arena an hour early, anxiously awaiting puck drop. The student section was relentless with chants of “We Are… Penn State” leading up to the start of the game. The crowd erupted even more when Pegula came out for the ceremonial puck drop with PSU captains Tommy Olczyk (son of Eddie Olczyk) and Brian Shultz.
Aside from 33 penalty minutes, the Nittany Lions gave their fans an exciting opening night. Nate Jensen opened up the game with a goal three minutes into the first period assisted by Taylor Holstrom.
After a scoreless second period, Penn State’s Curtis Loik scored a shorthanded goal assisted by David Goodwin at 3:24 of the third. At 12:27, David Goodwin scored his own to make it 3-0 with an assist from Zach Saar.
Three minutes later, Army’s Mac Lalor scored a 5-on-3 goal assisted by Willie Faust and Jonathan Gehrt. This was the only time they were able to capitalize on any of their nine power play opportunities.
The Lions’ last goal was an empty-netter scored by Eric Scheid at 19:35 to close out the win.
The arena was designed so the rowdy student section would be behind the opposing goaltender for two of the periods. That paid off well for the Lions. All of Penn State’s goals were scored when Army goalie, Rob Tadazak was in front of the students. In an interview, Tadazak said, “We don’t get that kind of student section at West Point…It’s nice to have people screaming. It’s all fun and games. I was going to shake their hands after the game. It keeps it interesting.”
Penn State goalie Matthew Skoff made 25 saves to hold Army to one. Penn State also won 60 percent of their faceoffs.
The Penn State team and fans look forward to this same excitement through the rest of the reason. Their next game is Friday, October 18 at Air Force. They will be back at Pegula on Friday, October 25 against RIT.
Photo courtesy of http://www.gopsusports.com/view.gal?id=148141
After getting dropped by the Panthers in a 3-6 decision on Friday night, the Penguins set off to Tampa Bay determined to turn that around and not be the tired team going into the Saturday night game. They did just that with a 5-4 win thanks to Sidney Crosby and game hero Matt Niskanen.
The game opened with a fight between former teammates Craig Adams and Ryan Malone, resulting in a fighting major for both. A mere twenty seconds later Chuck Kobasew was called for a hook against Steven Stamkos, giving the Lightning a man-advantage. The Lightning had three power play opportunities during the first period, and used that to their advantage as Valterri Filppula opened the scoring at 13:25, it was his fourth goal in the season, and third in two games.
The second period, which saw Ryan Malone getting a 10-minute major for misconduct, and Eric Brewer getting a roughing against Kobasew, was the turning point in the game when Sidney Crosby was able to tie it up at 1-1. At 5:11, Steven Stamkos put the Lightning ahead 2-1, netting his fourth goal in two games. Less than two minutes later, at 7:01, Brooks Orpik deflected a shot from Pascal Dupuis, and the puck found the back of the net, 2-2 once again. Teddy Purcell got a piece of the deflecting action, being in the right place at the right time, and was able to tip in a shot from Sami Salo, putting the Lightning up 3-2 going into the third.
The game was tied four different times, each team not allowing the goals to be more than one apart.
A mere :25 seconds into the third period Sidney Crosby tied it up, netting his hat trick ten minutes later on a power-play goal as Alex Killorn sat in the box after a holding call against Malkin. Alex Killorn came back, making a power play goal of his own on a Kunitz penalty, to tie up the score once again. With 18.6 seconds left in the game, fans were hoping to see the heated game go into over time, when Matt Niskanen fired one final shot past Anders Lindback, and the puck found the back of the net. It sent Penguins fans in the arena to their feet, cheering loudly as the defensemen scored the team’s third power play goal of the night.
Of the nine goals in the game, five were power play goals. Three scored by the Penguins, and two scored by the Lightning.
The Penguins are now 4-1-0 on the season, and with the Lightning’s three-game winning streak over, they now sit at 3-2-0. Crosby has nine points in five games, gaining at least one per game.
The Penguins return to Consol Energy Center on Tuesday to play the Edmonton Oilers at 1900 hrs.
Tampa continues their home stand on Tuesday when they play the Los Angeles Kings at 1930 hrs.
THREE STARS OF THE GAME
The Springfield Falcons hosted the Worcester Sharks last night for their second game of the season, both of which have been at home. This was the first game of the season for Worcester. The teams will meet 5 more times this season. The next match up is also in Springfield on October 26th.
After the puck dropped to start the game, the Falcons did not waste must time testing returning Sharks goaltender Harri Sateri. The first goal of the game came at just the 3:05 mark. Tim Erixon, playing in his first game after being reassigned from Columbus, fired a shot from the blue line. Rookie Lukas Sedlak managed to tip it in. Cody Goloubef got the secondary assist. That was not it for the Falcons in the first period though. Despite not being able to convert on the powerplay just after their first goal, Springfield would still score again in the first frame. At 15:07, Jake Hansen was standing next to the net ready to tip in a shot by Erixon. The secondary assist went to Michael Chaput.
Just a couple minutes after the second goal, the first fight of the game broke out. After a whistle, Jimmy Bonneau of the Sharks started trying to engage with Dalton Smith of the Falcons. At first, Smith did not seem like he wanted to fight. Bonneau must have said something, though, because Smith immediately changed his course and lost his gloves. The pair exchanged a number of punches with Bonneau getting the edge when he eventually pinned Smith to the boards.
When the teams came out for the second period, it was the Sharks who capitalized first. Sharks forward Daniil Tarasov took a shot and Eriah Hayes was there to put the rebound past Falcons goaltender, Jeremy Smith. Only 19 seconds after the Sharks scored to close the gap to 2-1, not one but two fights broke out. At one end of the ice, Worcester’s Bracken Kearns and Springfield’s Will Weber. Weber ultimately ended up pinning Kearns down. Play had continued slightly after the first fight broke out and at the other end of the ice, Worcester’s captain, Rob Davison, was slugging it out with Springfield’s Darryl Boyce. It was a clear edge to Davison, but both of them were thrown out of the game due to it being a secondary altercation.
“We had gone with 7 defensemen in the first place, then we lost Boyce so we were thin,” Head Coach Brad Larsen said. “You just have to manage ice time. There’s a lot of line juggling, especially in the second half of the game. I’ve never heard a player complain about getting too much ice time though.”
At 14:09 of the second period, the Falcons had almost two full minutes of five on three hockey. Tarasov had already gone off for slashing when the refs called Rylan Schwartz for a face-off violation. Springfield only needed 20 second of their two man advantage. Jonathan Marchessault put the puck over Sateri’s shoulder to make it 3-1 Falcons with assists to Frederic St. Denis and Austin Madaisky. Just after the second of the two penalties expired, the Falcons capitalized again. Sateri went down to make the initial save and gave up a rebound to Hansen. He lifted it to notch his second of the game. After not playing during the playoffs, Hansen has looked good.
“I got the chance to move up (in the lines) and play with Chaput and (Sean) Collins. I knew I was going to get more ice time and it was great to score two goals like that for my confidence,” Hansen said. “This league is so hard to score. If they come, they come. I knew there was a chance of scoring a hat trick but that’s something you can’t plan for. If there’s a play to be made, you just have to make it.”
The Sharks did not want to go to the second intermission still down 4-1 and made a push to start coming back. Dalton Smith ran over Sateri and got called for goaltender interference. Less than a minute into the powerplay, the Sharks capitalized. Brodie Reid took a shot from the top of the face-off circle that beat Jeremy Smith. The assists came from Tarasov and Marek Viedensky.
When the puck dropped in the third, the Sharks were still not willing to give up hope that they might be able to come back. At 5:22, they were rewarded for their hard effort once again. James Livingston positioned himself right in front of the net and shot the puck home with assists to Taylor Doherty and Kearns. Late in the game, one of the Sharks had to be taken from the ice. Weber hit Worcester’s Tarasov in the corner. When Tarasov got up, he relied heavily on his teammates, putting no weight on his right leg. In the ensuing powerplay, the Sharks were unable to tie the game. Springfield held off the comeback and won the game 4-3.
“It wasn’t a pretty win but they’re not always going to be pretty. We found a way to dig deep and hold onto that lead to make sure we closed it out and that’s a good sign,” Larsen said. “You’d rather win ugly than lose pretty.”
Springfield heads down to Bridgeport for an afternoon game against the Sound Tigers. The Worcester Sharks are off until they open their season at home on Saturday, October 19th. Both teams will likely be looking to the game tape from last night to keep improving.
With Canadian Thanksgiving skating in this weekend and the gorgeous autumn leaves decorating the ground, we thought a quick and easy DIY was in order. Every holiday table could use some sprucing up and our ‘Autumn Leaf Votive’ is an easy, inexpensive and quick DIY to add charm during the fall season.
You’ll need:
1 Mason Jar
8-12 Autumn leaves, make sure they aren’t too dry
Modge Podge, we’ve included a homemade recipe below
Paintbrush/Foam Brush
Hot Glue Gun
Tea light
Directions
1. Cut the stems off all the leaves
2. Hot glue the leaves onto your mason jar, until the surface is predominately covered
3. Take your foam or paintbrush and carefully modge podge the entire surface
4. Once dry (approx 2 hours), drop a candle inside, light and you’ve got a perfect decoration for the fall season
Don’t have modge podge laying around, you can make your own. With a 75/25 mixture of water and glue.
We poured one regular sized bottle of Elmers white glue in a small mason jar, poured in 1/4 cup water, closed the jar and shook it. Voila, homemade modge podge for way less than it’s sold at the craft store!
Ask me what I did today, Internet.
Today I walked on Patrick Kane’s face, courtesy of the County Line Orchard corn maze in Hobart, Indiana. That’s right, I drove all the way to Indiana in order to pick apples, eat pumpkin donuts, ride a tractor, and to find my way through a corn maze in the shape of Patrick Kane (obviously).
I’ve always dreamed of touching the Cup, you guys, and today I had the opportunity. And let me tell you, it was just as magical as I always imagined. I mean, there was a lot more agriculture involved than even my most ambitious fantasies ever thought to include, but whatever. I don’t judge your dreams, Internet. Don’t judge mine.
The morning started outside a Potbelly’s, where apparently my compatriots spotted a wild Jonathan Toews in his natural habitat (lurking near the El). I’m told he even tossed them a wave, because if my first round of Speed Dating the Blackhawks taught us nothing else, it taught us that Jonathan Toews is a Cool Dad. Look how much fun he’s having on a Saturday morning, you guys! Waving to fans outside a Potbelly’s and pulling a Crosby with his hands in his pockets.
Anyway, today was a novelty for a baby Hawks fan like myself. I come from Virginia, where hockey is … not a thing. I really can’t emphasize how much people do not care about skating in my hometown, unless you count Friday nights at the roller rink (this is not a joke). My embarrassing love for the Blue Jackets and the Penguins has always been a solo venture, though I have lovely friends who are for the most part willing to benignly sit on my couch and listen to me spill emotions all over them.
The thing is, my trip across Patrick Kane’s face into the Stanley Cup really had nothing to do with the game of hockey. The fabulous bluegrass band playing on a stage that said BARNYARD JAMS across the top had nothing to do with hockey; the soft pretzel with cheddar cheese that I ate in under a minute had nothing to do with hockey; listening to hilarious and uncomfortable excerpts from niche market Amazon self-publications very aggressively had nothing to do with hockey.
But at the same time, it had everything to do with the Blackhawks. The County Line Orchard was full of teenage boys in backwards Hawks baseball caps, of little girls in too-big Toews and Kane jerseys, and of pictures of my face on Patrick Kane’s body.
(I’ve never looked so athletic in my life. Real Life Mollyhall is a clumsy, pigeon-toed butterfingers, but Patrick Kane Mollyhall only lost three games last season. Way to go, Patrick Kane Mollyhall! You’ve brought honor to the house of Seeley.)
I guess what I’m saying is that I’m very unused to hockey being a community sport. I watched the Stanley Cup final this year alone in a restaurant because I happened to know the bartender and he was nice enough to turn on the game. I can’t tell you how nice it was to feel like I was part of something. As much as I say that “we” need to stop depending so much on Sergei Bobrovsky, I am not, in fact, a Blue Jacket.
But I am, or I am learning to be, a Blackhawks fan. I was part of a “we” today–the “we” of people who put on their Hawks merch and drove an hour and a half outside of Chicago to stand in a cornfield and make jokes about Kane’s mullet and Jonathan apples (which, according to Wikipedia, are “a medium-sized sweet apple, with a strong touch of acid and a tough but smooth skin.” Do with that what you will).
It felt good. It maybe even felt like enough reason to spend $100 on a hockey ticket.
Columbus started strong in their matinee game today against Boston, their second home game of the season. They maintained the puck for much of the period, staying in the Bruins’ zone but unable to get many shots off in the face of solid Boston defense.
Defenseman John Joseph Louis Johnson III–more familiarly, Jack Johnson–scored the first goal of the game during a power play opportunity with an assist from Marion Gaborik and James Wisnewski. Both teams played with a lot of physicality; Boston has always played the type of hockey that depends more on physical domination than subtle stick work, and that showed in today’s game. Columbus responded well, but with the exception of Johnson’s power play goal, were unable to push any more of their 27 shots passed Tuuka Rask.
The second period saw heavy dependence from the Blue Jackets on Sergei Bobrovsky, as more time was spent down in their defensive zone. By the end of the game, Bobrovsky blocked 33 of 36 shots on goal. Boston game out from the intermission pushing hard and skating fast. Chris Kelly evened the score with less than four minutes to go in the second period after coming off a hooking penalty. The rest of the game was spent largely in the Blue Jackets’ zone, but neither team tallied any more points.
The Bruins scored early in the third period thanks to Loui Ericksson with an assist from Patrice Bergeron and Riley Smith. If the first period belonged to Columbus, and the second to Boston, the third period saw a bit more even play with lots of scoring chances for both teams. Ultimately, though, the Bruins came out on top with a final score of 3-1 thanks to a late third period goal from Milan Lucic. Honestly, Rask was just a brick wall for the entirety of the third period; there was no getting the puck passed him.
Both teams will face the Red Wings in their next game. Boston will host on Monday; Columbus will travel to Detroit on Tuesday.
For Chicagoans, the Pat Foley and Eddie Olzcyk “tree-tirty-tree” is a kitschy tradition, so beloved by some that there’s vocal disappointment when broadcasting the actual game gets in the way of calling that time in the “tird” period.
So, when Nickolai Khabibulin took home his 333rd win against the New York Islanders Friday night, Foley had to have been chomping at the bit to announce it.
Blackhawks fans merely released a sigh of relief that the 40-year-old backup goalie once called the ‘Bulin wall (silent K’s can be flustering and if any town loves nicknames it’s home of Tazer/Captain Serious, Sharpie, Kaner, and the gang) made 17 saves for the 3-2 win.
He last donned an Indianhead sweater in April 2009–a shutout against the Redwings. Last year, in Edmonton, he played just 12 games. So far this year, his duties have included manning the door to the bench and stopping pucks at practice.
“Sometimes it’s tough when the goalies don’t get a whole lot of shots, so he was great tonight,” veteran Blackhawk Duncan Keith told media. “He’s a little more talkative now than he was back four or five years ago, so it’s good to have him back.”
The Blackhawks seemed to be in charge of the first period.
Rookie Joakim Nordstrom scored his first career goal, assisted by fellow Swedish countryman Niklas Hjalmarsson, giving the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead in the first. Jonathan Toews tallied the second.
But, with just under a minute left in the first, Josh Bailey scored. Kyle Okposko followed 50 seconds later.
Michal Handzus put the lead back in Chicago’s favor in the second, with the help of Keith. While holding onto leads has been dicey so far this season, the Blackhawks managed against New York.
Despite two penalty kills in the third period and the Islanders’ last-ditch goalie pull effort, Chicago walked away with a regulation win.
“We know what we have to do to protect those leads and to play smart late in games,” Toews said. “I think we’ve improved on that. We’ve improved, especially on the penalty kill, and I think that kind of showed in the defensive effort we made.”
In other game highlights, proving hockey players are in fact the toughest athletes, Islanders’ John Tavares performed his own dentistry on the bench after taking a puck to the mouth in the second period.
Blackhawks/Germany nail art
Bases: Sinful Colors Snow Me White and Wet N Wild MegaLast Red Tape
Detail work: So Easy Yellow, Green, white, black, orange.
For the C and mallets I used a detail brush and outlined the C using a toothpick
The french manicure Chicago stripes was made using a white base and paingint on black stripes
The feathers did take a couple of tries, but a simple way to make them is by making two crescent shapes per feather. The next step is to colour in the feather and then use a toothpick to draw in the details within the feather.
When I did these nails for the playoffs, it coincided with Wake the Line (wakeboard) competition in Germany, so I was able to use that to my benefit as it was the same as the Blackhawk colours. Other things that can be drawn in it’s place would be a Stanley cup or the word ‘Chicago.’
Ottawa Senators
I’m going to flat out say these weren’t my favourite, and it was kind of a rush job for that night’s game.
Regardless I used their third jersey ‘O’ for my thumb since their real logo is difficult to draw, and the jersey stripe on the rest of my fingers.
Bases: Wet N Wild Red Tape, Essie Sand Tropez (taupe on thumb) and Avon Licorice (black).
Gold Stripe was a mix of So Easy gold and Sinful Colors Flower Girl.
For the ‘O’ (which can be done by drawing a ‘C’ and a backwards ‘C’ was done with Ornaments nail art black’ pen and the red and gold outlines were of course So Easy Red and Gold
Sens was written in Ornaments white nail art pen.
If you don’t have a nail art pen or detail brushes, paint brushes that you buy at any craft store can be used in it’s place. The thinner the brush the better.
The ice is returning to the Cow Palace and the Bulls return for their sophomore season in San Francisco. The Bulls ended their inaugural season of 2012-13 making it to the first round of the ECHL playoffs, and over the summer they renewed their affiliation with the San Jose Sharks, a relationship that is already bearing fruit for the team’s compete level.
The Bulls will have some familiar faces to start out the year. A gritty core of Captain Scott Langdon, Dylan King and Kris Belan will return for a second season with the team. Christian Ouellet, who made a scoring impact with the Bulls late in the season, is also back in San Francisco. Finesse players Jordan Morrison and Dean Ouellet, who initially began the season playing overseas in Kazakhstan, left their hearts in San Francisco and decided to rejoin the team after a lengthy and convincing phone call from Head Coach Pat Curcio. Brett Findlay a talented young forward who joined the Bulls right before the playoff push last season is back to the Bulls as well. These returnees will keep the team strong even when players rotate in and out through call-ups. Coach Curcio says this core group of talent will help cement the identity of the team and help mentor the new players coming in, something the team didn’t have in its inaugural season.
“I’m real excited about the new group of guys and with the guys that are returning from last year. It takes a lot off our plates as coaches. Last year we had to show everyone everything. Now the core guys, they have the experience and we can tell them, and they can pass it on to the new guys so it’s real nice to have.”
Coach Pat Curcio
photo: Misty Wichman
The Bulls will also have a depth of talent down from the Sharks Organization, players that need to improve and refine their skill and a bit more development to be successful at the next level. Forwards Chris Crane and Ryan McDonough and defensemen Kyle Bigos, Steven Tarasuk, and Collin Bowman as well as goalie J.P. Anderson have joined the Bulls to start the season.
With the affiliation cemented, Coach Curcio and Assistant Coach Kyle Paige attended both NHL and AHL training camps. They are also on weekly phone calls with the Coaches from both Worcester and San Jose to make sure that they are sending the same message and keeping consistency with the systems they are implementing at each level. The renewed affiliation gave several players opportunities to attend Worcester’s training camp at the end of September. Forwards Kris Belan, Christian Ouellet, Brett Findlay and Luke Judson and defenseman Josh Kidd along with new goaltender Tyler Beskorowany participated in this year’s AHL camp. Belan, who played 8 games with the Manchester Monarchs last season, his first call-up to the AHL remarked that the experience is invaluable.
Kris Belan
photo: Misty Wichman
“That’s everyone’s goal is to get to the next level so getting to skate with the team and getting a couple games in was a great experience. It was a good learning curve for me. I know what I need to do. They told me on my exit meeting, what they liked about me and what I need to work on. It’s a good measuring point for where I need to be and where I want to go.”
For Christian Ouellet, it was his first experience up at an AHL level camp and it gave him perspective on what it might take to play up and the difficulty in trying to get a spot.
“It was a really good experience for me. Its fast and I think I played good but there are the guys with contracts so it’s hard to break in to the team. With the affiliation, if I keep playing good I could get called up to play up there, but it was a good experience for me and I’m happy to have had it.”
With the Bulls Organization more established both as a team and its Sharks affiliation, it is an attractive place to play for young players looking to get a start. Curcio has been hard at work to bring in more offensive clout to the Bulls lineup. Curcio has been hard at work to bring in more offensive clout to the lineup this season.
“There’s a lot of skill, guys that will provide some offense and be exciting to watch. We’ve got some real young hungry players that want to make it to the next level, so that makes their compete level and their will to succeed much higher so, I really like what I see so far.”
Training camp and preseason games at any level gives the players a chance to get their head back in the game after a long summer and the coaches an opportunity to build the team playing style and identity. Curcio uses preseason play to establish
“…how we want to forecheck and how we want to play in the d-zone and all these different areas. That’s a big part of what we want to do this week and its what we are going to use these games for to teach how we want to play. “
For Kris Belan, coming back to the West Coast is a bit of an adjustment after spending a long summer home in Ontario. For him, especially since he is returning to the same team, the preseason is more about settling in to a routine and meeting the new guys coming in to the team.
“The transition was easier this year because obviously we were here last year, so you know your way around the town and what it’s like at practice. It definitely is a little bit easier and with all the new guys coming in they’re asking questions, ‘how do we go here, what’s it like’ I like helping the boys out and making the transition easier for everyone.”
As far as his play goes, he wants to make sure that he keeps doing what he was doing at the end of last year. It’s the reason why Coach brought him back, his attention to the simple things that make him successful out on the ice.
With a strong group of returning players, skill down from both Worcester and San Jose and a promising group of young talent ready to prove themselves, the second season for the San Francisco Bulls is shaping up very differently than their inaugural start. One thing they can’t shake from last season is the long road trip to start the season. Their home opener is not until November 8th, before they will have spent three weeks out on the road as their home barn is literally turned into a barn for the Grand National Rodeo. Cowboys and real bulls will fill the Cow Palace while the team travels to Alaska to open the 2014-2014 season. Curcio acknowledges that this is a rough way to start a season but he is confident that the team can use it to build character.
“I think we can become better for it if don’t use it as an excuse. If we try to go out and win some games over the course of the road period and we come back with a winning record and then get some home games under our belt. I think that a good start is important for us.”
Both Belan and Ouellet see the improvement in the level of players the team has put together for this season. Belan says “I think we have a really good squad, I’m excited to finally get the season going… I think we are going to be really competitive this year.” They both want to do everything they can to be successful and Ouellet is ready to contribute where he is needed.
“I want to do everything I can, I want to help the team to win the games. If everybody does that then we have a chance to win and some guys get called up. I just want to play good every day 100 percent.”
The San Francisco Bulls will begin with three preseason games, two home and one away against the Bakersfield Condors and the Stockton Thunder. The regular season begins on October 18th when the Bulls travel to take on the Alaska Aces in Anchorage. Their first home game is Friday November 8th when they take on the Bakersfield Condors at the Cow Palace in San Francisco, CA.
The Manchester Monarchs have yet to play their first home game, but have played 3 road games already. All three of those game have gone to a shootout for their decision. Each of those games has ended 3-2 after the shootout with them dropping their first game to the Springfield Falcons and picking up a win against the Portland Pirates.
Last night’s game was the home opener for the Providence Bruins. Last season, they finished with the most points in the league and raised a banner to commemorate their Division Championship. The Bruins have some returning faces that were crucial to their success last year such as goaltender Niklas Svedberg, forwards Carter Camper, Craig Cunningham, and Ryan Cunningham, and defenseman David Warsofsky.
During the course of the season, the division rivals Manchester and Providence will meet 12 times. This first meeting setting the tone for how the series is likely to play out. The teams exchanged a pair of penalties early. Neither team got off great shots during the first frame and went to the first intermission scoreless.
The teams came back for the second period and the intensity picked up. Both teams started to get some good shots off to make the goalies come up with some good saves. Bruins forward Nick Johnson picked up his third tally of the season and opened the scoring for the game. At 7:40, Johnson tipped the puck past Martin Jones on a shot from defenseman Zach Trotman. Later that same period, the Bruins added to their lead. Alexander Fallstrom sent the puck over to Jared Knight at the bottom of the face-off circle. He beat Jones at 12:42 of the second to put Providence up 2-0.
The whole momentum seemed to shift when the teams came out for the third period. It was immediately clear that Manchester wanted it more. They controlled the entire period, taking 16 shots on Bruins’ Niklas Svedberg while limiting Providence to just 3 shots. At 5:10 of the third, the Monarchs got on the board. Just 11 seconds after Craig Cunningham of the Bruins went off for tripping, defenseman Andrew Bodnarchuk capitalized on the power play with the assists to Brandon Kozun and Jordan Weal. After that first goal, Manchester continued to keep up the pressure. Although Svedberg made some great shots, the let another one in at 17:41. This time it was Kozun from Weal and Bodnarchuk.
At the end of regulation, the teams were still tied. Providence seemed to find their step again during overtime with the help of a penalty to Manchester. They got called for having too many men on the ice, possibly forgetting that overtime hockey is 4 on 4. The next 2 minutes were played 4 on 3 with Monarchs barely managing to make a change to the defensemen. Andy Andreoff played the entire penalty kill and the Monarchs found themselves able to get out of the situation without giving up a goal.
Despite the Bruins putting up 7 shots in the 5 minute overtime, the teams were still tied and went to a shootout. The teams did not need to go to their fifth shooters because it ended after 4. Providence shot first, sending out Ryan Spooner, Alexander Khokhlachev, Matt Fraser, and Carter Camper. Jones turned away all but Spooner, who scored to open things up. In response, Manchester sent out Tyler Toffoli, Jordan Weal, Brandon Kozun, and Andy Andreoff. Svedberg was only able to stop Kozun as the Monarchs completed the comeback victory.
Tonight, both teams are on the road. The Monarchs continue their season by heading down to Bridgeport to take on the Sound Tigers for the first time. The Providence Bruins head north to take on the Portland Pirates at their new home in Lewiston. Those teams meet a total of 12 times this season.
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