Sean Cahill made 29 saves for his first SJHL shutout, including some huge stops on a bunch of penalty kills in the third, and the goals came from D. Jay McGrath (2), Johnny Calkins and Braeden Adamyk, all in the second period.
The coaching staff was adamant that the long layoff would not be an excuse tonight and although there were definite signs of rust from both teams in a scoreless first period, the Klippers would not be denied in the second. Their play in the first and second were so different, it was almost like someone flipped a switch.
McGrath opened the scoring 2:26 into the second when he lofted a routine wrist shot at Russell Abbott, with no traffic, and it somehow evaded the netminder.
Calkins scored a beauty on the power play at 7:05 to make it 2-0. Kurt Leedahl went D to D for Sanfred King at the left point, King threaded a cross-ice feed to Calkins on the half wall, and Calkins kicked it to his stick while moving inside before letting a wrister go low glove.
McGrath added his second, and ninth on the year, at 9:53 when Abbott gave up a big rebound on Andrew Dommett's shot from the slot, and McGrath dumped it into the yawning cage from the left side.
Finally, Braeden Adamyk made it 4-0 at 17:08 on an impressive bar down snipe from almost the goal line to the left of Abbott. I think everyone was expecting him to feed Dommett or Calkins and he just went for it. Like David Haaf said in the press box, you could try that 100 times and not pull it off.
The Klippers led the shots 34-16 after two, but that changed in a hurry as the Hounds got three straight power plays (although it seemed like more). Cahill was equal to the task. He made some tremendous saves to prevent the Hounds from getting back in the game and keep his shutout bid alive.
The three stars were very tough to pick tonight. There were a lot of guys who had big games and probably deserved one, ranging from Calkins to Leedahl to Dommett to Mysiorek to Sonntag to Hoffman. In the end it was Cahill because he was full value for the shutout, King because he controlled the second period with his playmaking and vision on the PP, and McGrath for going to the net and being rewarded with two goals.
Jesse Mysiorek picked up the bump on a night when it could have gone to several guys too. Taylor Wasden recorded something like 12 hits tonight according to the scratches.
There is a ton of trade talk swirling around right now and I've had some pretty interesting conversations both tonight and over the past couple of days over who might be on the move. I didn't spot any SJHL team reps in the arena to watch Notre Dame players tonight, but that doesn't necessarily mean they weren't there. Will we see the same Hounds line-up on Thursday?
Let's hear some chatter... who do readers think will be dealt around the league before January 10, and where to?
No comments:
Post a Comment