The Crew Jackets were without a good defenseman, perhaps our best winger and our top-notch goalie, Tim. Poor guy. Tim was not only recently in a motorcycle accident -- which he walked away from with minimal damage -- but also hyper extended his knee the night before our game. We'd be without his services. On top of all this, we're playing one of the best teams in the league with a backup goalie playing netminder in a game for his first time. Uh oh.
And boy did the results show it. While our team has some skilled players, youth -- a luxury in low-level E league rec hockey -- and some experience, most are playing in their first or second session. Couple that with this only our third game together; we still haven't figured each other out yet. Our opponent however, The Crue, have been playing together for some time now. They're one of the best passing teams I've ever seen at our meager level. They play as a unit and gave us an 8-2 shellacking.
Some teams are filled with ringers who should be playing two-three levels higher than us. These guys, though have plenty of relative skill, obliterate you in an inoffensive way. They simply play good, sound team hockey.
We had some flashes of promise. The lone female on our team, Lauren, was positionally sound and showing all the other male wingers. I moved a defenseman of ours, Matt, to third-line center to fill a hole on offense. Boy did he not disappoint. He's one of our older players but skated like lightning, creating multiple breakaway opportunities for himself. One lead to a goal when The Crue's goalie dared challenge him to a footrace to the puck and lost.
Our first line, which I played right wing and center on this game, did fairly well. We only potted a goal, but it came from Jon, who didn't have much confidence in his shot, having been hesitant to take them. I bet breaking the ice on his first will lead to many.
Perhaps it's bias, but I felt like our first line was better than their best line. That's a pretty good sign of things to come three games in.
I personally played a terrible game. The previous day I biked 16 miles and ran part of an obstacle course . My legs were not chugging at max power, and I missed out on a lot of opportunities to elevate my team. Even though I wasn't doing so well at creating chances, many were gifted to me via lucky bounces. I had four quality shots on net, but the goalie bested me each time. I almost picked the upper corner on one, but dinged his face mask instead. (He was fine.)
Our backup goalie, Jordan, green though he was, provided some individual heroics. An athletic, enthusiastic, 21-year-old kid made some stellar acts-of-desperation saves. His best, SportsCenter Top 10 highlight reel save was when he found himself out of position, made a desperate dive back towards the wide open net and, with the shooter having 24-sq ft of net seemingly all to himself, Jordan manage to rob him with stellar glove save. You know it was a sick play when both team's benches tap their sticks and cheer the play of the game.
It certainly didn't change the results of the 8-2 thumping we received, but spirits were high when, for the first time, a good chunk of our team went out for post-game drinks. We talked about what went right and the many more things that did not, but it was mostly just enjoying having played the best sport in the world with a group of people just starting to get to know each other -- on and off the ice.
The best is yet to come.
No comments:
Post a Comment