A Washington Stealth Fan Blog
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Actually, 17 points to be exact.
Our offensive guns exploded on Eliuk and the Lumberjax. 17-8. This exceeded all my expectations both offensively and defensively. We held Portland to 8 goals, but I’m not sure it was holding as much as it was their offense is horrible. We out shot them 3 to 2. The last time I checked during the game were we out shooting them 60-39 late in the fourth. So even with an equal save percentage we’d still be creaming them, let alone outscoring them more than 2 to 1.
This started really slow for both teams, end of the first I think the score was 2-1. We extended the lead to 5-1 before the Lumberjax got on the board again. We traded two goals scoring sequences until the score was 8-6 or so. Then in the 3rd quarter we absolutely dominated the poor Jax. The official stat sheet isn’t available online for some reason, but we probably scored five or so goals that quarter, I don’t know if Portland even got one.
Then between the 3rd and 4th quarters Portland pulled their standard issue, challenge the goalie equipment. It worked for them, Cosmo’s gear was found to be illegally large, so he got a penalty and was kicked outta the game. Aaron Bold came in and let in a goal that Cosmo maybe wouldn’t have, but we were so far ahead it didn’t even matter. The fourth quarter was fun time for the Stealth. They hadn’t been in that situation in who knows how long, but they enjoyed every moment of it. Little Hawksbee ended up being our main weapon 🙂 He scored a goal on man up after releasing his over penalty, he ran down behind the crease and parked himself on the far side of the net. A couple passes later he was receiving the cross crease pass from Luke Wiles and dunked it in for a goal. A couple minutes later he was streaking down the field, with Guindon I think and caught a feed right as he he had to dive to keep from entering the crease. He put the shot in on Eliuk and it crossed the goal line just after he landed in the crease. Technically it shouldn’t have counted, but it happened so fast and the game was out of control so they counted it, no one complained and we killed the clock from there, as it was our 17th goal.
It was a great game, I’m still amazed we scored 17 goals. I’m more amazed Portland was only able to score 8 goals. They don’t have a Go To player on offense. No one is taking charge. The goals they scored where on individual charges at the net that beat their defender and the keeper. On Man Up the Lumberjax created a nice goal bringing a cutter right down the middle that we left open foolishly.
Sterling Mitchell got some playing time tonight. That was a nice treat for the guy. I don’t recall him getting a large number of minutes, but he didn’t mess up when he was in there. So that’s a vote of confidence from me. Sterling got in the line-up because Kyle Sorenson was serving a one game suspension for an Unsportsmanlike Conduct penalty he received in the New York game. I’m guessing it came from his fight with Ryan Boyle, but he only got a 5 minute penalty during the game for that fight. So I’m not positive it was from the same event, but it probably was.
Rosy had a great game getting four goals and six assists. For his goals he was just parking himself high on his side, looking at the goal, seeing the holes that Eliuk left quite open and putting the ball where he wasn’t. For the assists, well… we think that a couple of Zywicki’s got put under Rosy’s name. But we won’t argue. Congratulations to Rosy for his upcoming Offensive Player of the week award 🙂
Doyle was shooting the best we’ve ever seen him shoot. All season his shots were missing the cage, now this week (actually starting with the All-Star game last week) he’s more on point. He still had a couple that just missed the cage, but the rest where on point and in the net. He was putting them off Eliuk’s right leg perfectly and his last goal he smoked Eliuk through the 5 hole. He’s definitely the leader on offense now, controlling the tempo and action of the plays. Everyone appears to be following him and the offense is thriving because of it. I’m amazed he only had one assist, he is more influential than that, but that’s part of his power. Even if it’s not in the stats, he’s a major part of the 17 goals we scored.
Zywicki was the other main cog to the scoring machine. He had a ton of assists tonight (apparently only 5, so maybe that’s just a metric ton) and a collection of brilliant goals beating his defenders one on one a couple times as well as easy dunk shots from a nice cross field assist. Again, the official stat sheet isn’t available at this time, just the quick game summary on sjstealth.com, but Zywicki overtook Doyle for points lead on the season. Zywicki was only 1 point behind Doyle at the start of the game and with those assists tonight he should be two points ahead of Doyle.
The first rematch is just next Saturday. Tensions will be high for the Jax. Portland won’t enjoy being handled like this on their own turf, neither will their crowd. I can’t wait! It’ll also be the national game of the week, so everyone will get to watch it on Versus on Monday evening. This will be good exposure to show our new high octane offense.