A Washington Stealth Fan Blog
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In games that had implications to the Stealth’s playoff hopes Calgary lost and Arizona won.
The scores to tonight’s games were basically crazy. I wouldn’t have predicted a single one of these scores. Toronto crushed Philly 15-6. Benesch lead the way with 4 goals. Arizona took an early lead on Colorado and never relinquished it. And finally Portland kinda broke out of their funk and took down Calgary 13-12 in the closest game of the night.
The Philly and Toronto game I don’t care too much about, but I do like seeing Ryan Benesch lead the Rock in goals. I can see why he was worthy of a #1 pick with the numbers he’s put up the second half of the season. Took him a little while to get settled in with the Rock since he went through training camp in SJ, but he’s adjusting very nicely.
In the Arizona game, it was rough to see Arizona take down Colorado. Gee Nash has been in the tank since the All Star break. This was the third straight game he’s been pulled, this time 7 mins in to the 2nd quarter after the team was down 6-2 or 6-3. I’d much rather have seen Arizona lose so that we could have caught them tomorrow night and vaulted in to 2nd place, but we’ll just have to wait a weekend to do that. But with the Colorado loss the door is still open on a miracle first place ranking, so who knows…
In the Portland game, I was so happy to see Calgary lose. I could care less if Portland won, but the Calgary loss was the key to the night. All week I was looking at Arizona games as a way for the Stealth to move up in the standings, and it wasn’t until today that I looked at the Calgary games and realized they have Portland twice this weekend. So if they won both they’d have one more win than us (assuming we win). Not good! So what did Portland do for us? They jumped out to a 6-1 lead at the end of the 1st quarter and held on for dear life from there. Even at 6-1 I knew it wasn’t a done deal. Last year the Stealth went in and jumped all over the Lumberjax and took a 7-1, maybe just 6-1 lead. Eliuk got pulled and Kinger shut down the Stealth for the final 3 quarter and Portland one it on a late Ryan Powell goal. The game is stuck in mind and on my TiVo. I enjoy watching the 1st quarter and then turning it off. In summary, a 6-1 lead in The Rose Garden isn’t a done deal. But this time Portland held on and knocked Calgary a half game behind us, breaking the tie for 3rd place to our advantage.
Tomorrow night Portland and Calgary do it again, but up in Calgary. Hopefully Portland can take it to the Roughnecks one more time. Please, please, please take it to the Roughnecks one more time. It will leave us lots of breathing room and we don’t have enough of that again.