A Washington Stealth Fan Blog
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All right. We escaped from New York with the win. As usual, it was an exciting game.
We had a great 1st quarter and first half of the 4th quarter. The second quarter was so-so and the 3rd quarter was highlighted by Kyle Sorenson beating up poor little Ryan Boyle. Boyle was out sized, out punched and out matched in that fight. It was great. The resulting penalties fromt he fight confused the heck outta me. Kyle got 5 minutes. Boyle got 5 minutes and Casey Powell got 2 and 10 minutes??? How did Powell get 10 minutes? For what? Talking to the ref after the fight? He’s the captain, he can talk to the refs right?
It didn’t matter, the fight actually energized the Titans and got them back in the game with two quick short handed goals to tie it 7-7. Though one of those goals should not have counted, the Titan who scored it (#47 I think or #42) totally toed the line before scoring, so he was in the crease. Then his subsequent punch to Cosmo’s head was uncalled for. We settled down afterwards and built the lead back up with a 5-1 run after that.
Cosmo did a great job in goal. He was making the saves he seemed to have been missing all season. The defense also stepped up and cut down on the 1-on-1 shots. Cosmo also was wearing a different mask than I’ve ever seen him in. Instead of his Stealth branded mask he was wearing a black one with like a web or something on it. I feel like I’ve seen it on someone else before, but I can’t remember where. It was quite a change for Cos, I know he’d been wearing the Stealth branded helmet for a number of year, including in the summer when he’s playing for Victoria. The change sparked something in him though, he looked great. The Titans also out shot us by a good number, I didn’t look it up, but the commentators mentioned that it was by maybe 10 or more shots. I think the number might have grown even more as we spent the 4th quarter killing the shot clock and dumping the ball in the corner instead of taking actual shots.
The offense was well spread out, 5 different players had two goals. Hawks even had a nice score off a face-off that Zywicki picked up and brought down just seconds after NY scored their 7th goal to tie the game up. Cam Sedgewick’s goals were really nice too. One was off a fast break, Meat brought the ball down on the left side, Cam was ahead of the play and on the right. The single defender finally slid to Meat when he got to the crease and Meat dumped the ball to Cam who was 1-on-1 with Matt Vinc in goal and had three fakes to put an easy shot through the five hole.
Defensively, we definitely looked better than NY here as well. Our early goals were some good 1-on-1 moves beating Titan defenders. I think the Titans then stepped up and that opened up out team offense as the D started looking to slide and leaving the Stealth offense a little more open for assisted goals. The Stealth defense played better all around. Not really getting beat on team or 1-on-1. Half of the Titan goals were in transition if I recall correctly. Against our set defense, they struggled. Especially on Man Down.
The single difference in the game, Power Plays! We went converted 4 out 5 or 6 and the Titans converted 1 out of 7. If it had even been 2 for 7 they would have tied the game. Man up 6 times and they couldn’t score. Pretty much sums up the Titans season. They’re man up conversion rate matches their win percentage.
Our next game is on Friday at Edmonton. It’ll be the battle for 4th place in the West. Edmonton is surging after some key off-season player transactions and the big trade for them two weeks ago to pick up Curtis Palidwor in goal. He’s the guy we should have faced tonight instead of Vinc. We’ll see what the result of tonight’s game might have been against a different goalie.