1-1 hockey games aren’t much fun to recap: a goal a side, maybe you talk about the goalies, and hopefully there was some crazy end-to-end or something. There’s not a lot to talk about with this one, but I do have three things for you.
- The pace felt slow at times, as if the teams would find their fatigue simultaneously. The effort was there, to be sure, but it’s not as if we saw a lot of breakaways or odd-man rushes. It was just an even-set 5×5 hockey game with just ten penalty whistles. The U-18 goal was on the power play in a close-in scramble. [I will note that a potential UAH goal was blown down; the light went on a half-second after the whistle came down, and it was clear that a goal would not be awarded, although not to some disappointed home fans.]
Lasse Uusivirta’s goal was a rifle shot through traffic. It was hard to tell from the other end whether it bounced off of bodies, but kudos to Lasse for letting rip and seeing what happened. I have enjoyed watching his game mature over the last couple of years, and his pairing with Curtis deBruyn has been a fine one this season.
John Griggs was very good tonight. He flashed leather a few times, but his best moves were redirecting shots, solid pad saves denying the bottom of the net, and a couple scrambling combinations to keep the game tied. Well done, sir. 35-of-36 (.972) garnered him a well-deserved first star, as he kept the increased pressure in the third completely choked off.
The boys face John McCabe’s Finlandia team on Friday night at 7 and Saturday afternoon at 3.