A Washington Stealth Fan Blog
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It’s hard to sit down and right my reviews after losses. A loss usually means there were not too many bright spots and it is a lot nicer to talk about the good than talk about the bad.
I’d say the key turning point in the game was Brodie Merrill’s game tying goal on the shot that went high in the air and three Stealth jumped too soon for and bounced right to Brodie behind the defense so he could waltz in untouched on Anthony Cosmo. If the Stealth boys had just stayed on the ground and boxed some guys out or at least stayed behind the Jax offense players it most likely would have prevented that unsettled situation
Portland did a great job staying out of the penalty box. Tyler Codron got the only Jax penalty of the game, a five minute major high sticking call along with a game misconduct. The high sticking was only shown in real time w/o any replays so I didn’t get to see how bad it was, but it didn’t look that bad in the one angle shown on TV. The Stealth fully capitalized on the Power Play get the two allowed power play conversions. I really wish PDX had been called for more penalties to give the Stealth more opportunities.
Finally, major props go out to Derek Malawsky for figuring out how to step in to the crease with both feet, right in front of Cosmo and the ref before the Morgan brother scored the game winning goal in OT and distracting Cosmo w/o getting it called. I don’t know how the goal was allowed. A couple other impartial people in the forums watched the game and also had no clue how the call was allowed. I’m pretty sure that ref has worked his last game of the season after letting a play like that in OT stand. Chet Cotoure can let stuff like that go, but not some no name punk ref.
The Stealth still get to play for the West Division championship tomorrow, so all is not lost. But getting to 10 wins may have secured us home field throughout the entire playoffs, so it was potentially a damaging goal. If we meet in the playoffs Portland is going to get their doors blown off, so they better find a way to go to Colorado if they want to make it to the second round.