A Washington Stealth Fan Blog
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Review:
A good road game for the Stealth in Portland on Saturday night. The Stealth weren’t dominant, but looked and played like the better team. Anthony Cosmo was a little shaky in the start and the Jax held a 4-2 lead at the end of the first. But the defense in front of Cosmo locked down and held the Jax scoreless for 32 straight minutes including the second quarter when the Stealth went on a 5-0 run. Cosmo also had a great number of saves on Jax break away opportunities. He looked like a wall and it was a wonderful to watch.
The Stealth defenders also did the best job of bottling up Dan Dawson that I have ever seen a team do. Dawson was held to 1 goal and 3 assists. I was amazed by the defensive effort here. Dawson beat the Stealth up multiple times last season and I completely expected more of the same tonight. If the Stealth can do it again tomorrow then we may have figured something pretty important out.
Eric Martin and Jeff Zywicki lead the offense. Meat had 3 goals, probably his first career hat trick. Congratulations to Meat for the offensive explosion. Jeff Zywicki was the leading scorer in the game with 5 goals and 2 assists. Zywicki’s final goal, an empty netter while laying on the ground after being pulled to the ground by Jax defenders was a thing of beauty.
In a surprise move, all three lefty forwards Gary Rosyski, Tom Johnson and Sean Morris played on Saturday and Cam Sedgwick was a healthy scratch. Rosy scored the first goal of the game to get the ball rolling for the Stealth. Tom Johnson added a put back goal in the third quarter to get in the books and Sean Morris had a couple of assists.
As expected Peter Veltman was Luke Wiles replacement on the right side and did a good job. He doesn’t score the goals like Luke but he did play a great two man game as expected and Zywicki really stepped up to replace Luke’s production.
New Portland goalie Matt Disher made his Lumberjax debut and was less than his usual self (with his usual self being the one that lead the New Westminster Salmonbellies to the WLA regular season title). The Portland defense didn’t keep the Stealth attackers off the crease and Disher gave up the most rebounds I’ve ever seen a goalie give up. The Stealth didn’t always crash the goal after shots or they could have maybe converted a few more opportunities. When Philly comes to town on Friday and the purposefully take those shots on goes for rebounds it’s going to be a scoring bonanza for the Wings.
Steve Panarelli and Derek Malawsky got in to a scrap late in the game. Not too much of a fight, a couple blows by Panarelli to Malawsky and then Panarelli threw him to the ground and it was over. Malawsky had to be pulled restrained by the refs which was weird because if he had ignored the refs and gone after Panarelli more he would have gotten more penalties.
Game MVP:
Jeff Zywicki with 5 goals and 2 assists to lead the Stealth. He never quit until the final horn blew.
Preview:
Both teams play tomorrow. They each rested a couple of players that will probably play tomorrow and be fresh compared to the guys that played tonight. For the Stealth Cam Sedgwick and Zach Heffner will probably play after having the night off tonight. For Portland I saw Spencer Martin warm up but not play. I don’t recall if Ray Guze was out during warm ups, but he also did not play.
With the lose Portland also dropped a half game behind the 3rd place (!!!) Edmonton Rush and Calgary is on the outside looking in. But all three teams have won 4 games and the only differential is their number of losses. When the Stealth win tomorrow Portland will drop a full game behind Edmonton.
Portland coach Derek Keenan needs to make another attempt at field 18 players that can win a game. His attempt tonight was close and until Zywicki got his empty netter to make it 12-9 with 2 minutes to go I thought the game wasn’t finalized. If Keenan finds that one missing piece and the players rally to keep offensive players off the cease it could be a tough game. But I don’t believe Keenan has that kind of coaching powers.
Prediction:
The Jax now realize they’re one Calgary victory away from not even being in the playoffs. So they’ll be inspired to play a good game on Sunday. The Stealth are at the opposite end of the spectrum, with a win tomorrow they can stand alone atop the Western Division standings with Colorado a half game back. The Stealth beat the Jax tonight and now know what it takes to beat them again tomorrow. This is exactly what they’ll do to a Jax team that’ll be hanging their heads by the second half as they see their season continue to dwindle away. Stealth win 14-10.