Spouse and I did make the drive down to Kitchener last night (earlier this evening, actually) to watch the Leafs rookies vs. the Penguins rookies. I’ll have more to say about the game later – right now it’s late and I need to get to bed if I’m going to be a productive member of society tomorrow – but here are some preliminary thoughts:
Kid Kadri!!!!1 He’s the real deal, people. He could use some bulking up, especially up top, but the guy is slick smooth with incredible hand/eye co-ordination and a retinue of subtle moves, little shifts from side to side, slight changes of pace, small stick movements, etc. – that put his opponents off balance and allow him to sift through defenders and to find open space. I don’t think he’s NHL ready right now, but I would be willing to bet he’ll make the Leafs next year;
Jesse Blacker has a howitzer for a shot. That kid is some steady, too. I was impressed with his play, though he was on the ice for the Penguins’ second goal, scored on a soft little spinerama move on the goalline by Moon;
Stalberg and Stefanovich showed lots of promise and combined on the Leafs’ only goal of the evening – basically a short 2 on 0 after a Penguin defender turned it over to Stralberg in the high slot;
I didn’t notice Bozak and Hanson as much as I thought I might. I did see Hanson a lot, and he seemed to be playing well positionally, but they didn’t seem to accomplish much. The power play (which featured these two prominently) was an abomination worthy of an actual big league Maple Leafs power play – it was that bad;
Dale Mitchell continues to get noticed. He’s full of energy and plays a smart positional game, especially defensively. He played on a line with Gilati and Kurtz, and these three were more visible to my eye (especially in the late stages of the game) than Bozak and Hanson (though Stalberg, the third forward on that line, did impress me);
Andrew Engelage (former goaltender for the Memorial Cup Champion Windsor Spitfires) unfortunately didn’t do much to increase his chances of landing and keeping a big league deal – the Leafs had scored to make it 2-1 and were coming on in a big way and threatening to tie the game midway through the 3rd when Engelage coughed up a Raycroftian hairball and whiffed on Robert Bortuzzo’s weak shot for the 3rd Penguin goal, effectively extinguishing the Maple Leaf comeback attempt. Too bad for Andrew, I’d like to see him get a shot somewhere.
Here’s a quick mashup of some video I shot at the game. There are no fancy transitions, ’cause I haven’t figured out how to use that part of my new video editing software yet. Shown in this video are:
A picture of the teams lined up for the national anthems;
The Leafs skating out on to the ice for the 3rd period;
The Penguins first goal, the one iPhone and I combined to describe on Twitter as a “Quasimodo breakaway” – you gotta love “autocorrect”. And yes, those people in front of me DO have rather large heads, and yes, I should have used the “zoom” feature. Thanks for your help;
The fight between Slaney and Bortuzzo. Bombs away, this is truculence;
A bit of the play – featuring Bozak, Hanson and Stalberg, if I recall correctly; and
Kid Kadri doing some stuff, and then unfortunately getting drilled – he’s the guy taking the draw and wearing number 43.
I’ll take a little closer look at the footage I’ve got on Friday night and see if I can’t cobble together a little something better than this. In the meantime, enjoy.
First period: The best early scoring chance went to Rimouski; Spitfires goaltender Andrew Engelage stood tall on a long two on one and made an excellent save with his right arm on a quick wrist shot. There was another amusing moment when Windsor’s Adam Henrique finished his check with authority on Oceanic defenceman Emmanuel Boudreau, sending Boudreau into the boards heavily where Rimouski backup netminder Matthew Dopud was standing, toppling the bench-bound Dopud unceremoniously to the seat of his pants in the process.
The opening goal came from Windsor’s Eric Wellwood on a nice pass from Henrique; the feed put Wellwood in tight alone on Oceanic goaltender Gougeon, where the Windsor forward made a quick move to his backhand and deposited the puck deftly in the net between Gougeon’s legs. Rimouski roared right back with a goal from Piche, but the Spits had a quick response of their own: a soft goal on a right-wing wrist shot from Scott Timmins past Gougeon’s glove. The game was off to a great start with three goals in a minute and seventeen seconds, all in the first nine minutes of play. Not long after, Lane MacDermid took a boarding penalty in the Oceanic zone that Rimouski converted almost immediately into a power-play goal by Caron; that marker was produced by Spitfire forward Greg Nemisz’ failure to clear the puck on an opportunity immediately after the face-off, and a nice bit of passing by Rimouski’s Cornet and Cormier. Eric Wellwood had another terrific opportunity late in the period that he produced almost entirely by himself with his explosive speed, but his shot high to the blocker side went over the crossbar. Less than a minute later, Emmanuel Boudreau’s shot from the Windsor blueline went through a forest of players past Engelage for a 3-2 Rimouski lead. The Oceanic had an excellent opportunity to go up by two goals near the end of the first while shorthanded when Nemisz handled the puck carelessly from the point position on the power play, had his pocket picked by Boudreau and Boudreau fed the puck to Caron on an odd-man rush. The conclusion of the play saw Engelage down and out and clearly unaware of the whereabouts of the puck, but the disc was recovered and cleared to safety before the Oceanic forwards could retrieve it and fire it past the prone Windsor netminder.
Windsor seemed to begin the period applying excellent early pressure on the Rimouski puck carrier all over the ice. As much as I like the way Scott Timmins plays, it has to be said that the Spits seemed to sag perceptibly following Timmins’ careless boarding penalty and the quick Rimouski powerplay goal that followed. When the pressure evaporated somewhat, Rimouski seemed to get its skating legs and to generate some consistent offensive pressure of its own.
Second period: Early in the frame, Sptifires winger Austin Watson – who has been in the lineup since Justin Shugg injured his collarbone earlier in the tournament – took a delay of game penalty; Watson got caught clearing the puck directly over the unusually low glass in the Rimouski Colisée. The Spits killed that penalty thanks to some nice work from Ryan Ellis, Scott Timmins and Lane MacDermid. Much of the first half of the period was spent with the teams basically trading end to end rushes, though near the 12 minute mark sonsecutive shifts by the Timmins line and the Loktionov/Hall/Nemisz trio generated some sustained cycling pressure in the Oceanic zone. The Spits made a strong bid for the tying goal with seven and a half remaining in the period when Hall recovered a puck in the Oceanic zone, cycled it to Ryan Ellis on the point and Ellis launched a bomb that rang off the post behind Gougeon. The Spitfires very definitely began applying significant and sustained pressure in the offensive zone during this period. The Timmins/MacDermid/Watson forward line managed to draw a holding penalty from Patrick Delisle-Houde with a little more than 6 minutes remaining in the frame. Some terrific penalty killing by Oceanic captain Olivier Fortier produced some dicey moments directly in front of Andrew Engelage on the powerplay as Windsor’s powerplay again struggled to control the puck for sustained periods in the offensive zone. Strangely, with the penalty killed and Timmins’ line on the ice again, the Spitfire pressure seemed to immediately return and Oceanic goaltender Gougeon was called upon to make a terrific pad save on Lane MacDermid who recovered a loose puck in the slot on a scramble and whipped a shot right on target that Gougeon not only blocked, but controlled and froze. Ben Shutron got his stick up on Boudreau off the ensuing face-off and Rimouski went to the powerplay. Veilleux had two excellent chances, one of which was defused by Timmins and the other of which resulted in an Engelage save. Moments later, Sebastian PIché hit Cormier in stride up the middle to put the Oceanic forward in alone on Engelage. Cormier made a backhand to forehand deke to fool Engelage and deposited the puck in the empty net behind him to put the Oceanic up two goals. With a little more than a minute to go in the second period, Ryan Ellis had a wide open chance from the high slot and drilled one shoulder high at Gougeon, who seemed to get a small piece of it on the way by. To add insult to injury, Rimouski appeared to have cleared the puck over the glass in the final minute in such a fashion as to warrant a delay of game penalty call, but none was forthcoming.
Windsor must have felt unlucky to find themselves another goal behind as the second period drew to a close, having generally been at least as good as (if not superior to) the Oceanic throught the game and the period. Cue the 3rd period magic.
Third period: The Timmins/MacDermid/Watson line produced some early pressure in the first two minutes of the period. With 18 minutes to go in the period, Rimouski’s Caron recovered a loose puck in the Windsor zone and attempted to feed it to an open man in front but Dale Mitchell alertly deflected the centring attempt to defuse a dangerous opportunity. Less than two minutes later, Wellwood rushed up the left wing, lost the puck after a heavy check but it was recovered by his linemate Loktionov, as Windsor pursued the puck smartly. Loktionov circled the Oceanic net and centred it. Dale Mitchell had stealthily positioned himself at the top of the crease; Mitchell showed good hands under pressure to recover the puck and slip it past Gougeon to draw the Spits within one. The Timmins line again produced pressure on the very next shift, causing Cormier to draw a hooking penalty on Austin Watson off the left post. On the ensuing power play, Loktionov recoverd a puck on the left wing boards and fed it to Taylor Hall, who showed excellent vision dishing the disc to Mitchell – alone again – in the slot. Mitchell’s quick wrist shot beat Gougeon cleanly high to the glove side and the game was tied six minutes into the third. On the very next shift (and only thirty seconds or so on the clock later), Rimouski took another penalty, this time following a neutral zone hook on Windsor defenceman Mark Cundari by Oceanic winger Logan MacMillan. Moments later, Ryan Ellis took a wrist shot from the point that Gougeon had difficulty controlling; when it dropped to his feet Mitchell was again standing on the doorstep to bang the biscuit home. In three and a half minutes, the Spitfires had gone from two goals down to a one goal lead. All of a sudden, the Spitfires could do no wrong and the Oceanic were clearly stunned by their reversal of fortune. The Oceanic had their chances to tie the game up, particularly on a powerplay with about seven minutes to go (Rob Kwiet had been sent off for tripping); Engelage made a couple of terrific stops and Windsor’s recent success seemed to go to their legs, as the early pressure throughout the ice surface seemed to return to the Spitfires’ game. The game seemed to be setting up for a pretty dramatic finish when, with two minutes to play, Boudreau took a hooking penalty (and a highly questionable one at that – a one handed dig in the corner that seemed not to interfere with the Spitfire player’s progress at all). Desperate to try and even up the manpower situation, Rimouski coach Clément Jodoin called for the measurement of Andrew Engelage’s goal stick. The goalie’s cue was ruled to be legal and the Oceanic were accordingly assessed a two minute minor for delay of game, leaving them two men down for basically the remainder of the game. In the dying seconds of the game, Loktionov found Greg Nemisz standing unmarked off the left post for an exclamation point goal at 19:59 of the 3rd.
The karma of the Memorial Cup seems to slowly be shifting in the Sptifires’ favour; after failing to win the Cup in 1988 after losing only one game of their last 40 (and that coming from a bad third period in the final) and dropping their opening two round-robin games to opponents generally believed to be inferior this time around, the Spits are starting to get a couple of breaks. Leaf fans should be thrilled at the performance by Leaf prospect and noted hipster doofus Dale Mitchell, who showed that he could find open spaces and that he can put the biscuit in the basket from in close, all while under pressure in key situations in the season and game. He’s not going to be Brett Hull, but he might just have a few twenty goal NHL seasons in him; more importantly, he might be the kind of guy that can be counted on to find a spot to shoot from and to make no mistake in hotly contested playoff matches, should post-season hockey ever become part of the Toronto hockey experience again.
On to tomorrow night and a rematch against Drummondville. I am convinced that the Spitfires have yet to play their best game in this tournament; they started strong tonight but got a little derailed after running in to penalty trouble and getting burned. They seemed to be getting rattled again in the second period when they were clearly the better team but saw no success on the scoreboard, then felt they were getting hosed by the refs. Somebody said something in that dressing room at the end of the second period that focussed the team on the job at hand. Huge kudos to Windsor coach Bob Boughner, who seems to understand very well the role of a responsible energy line in getting a team pulling all together on the same rope; Boughner consistently goes to the Timmins/MacDermid line (recently rounded out with rookie Andrew Watson) to produce pressure and get his skill players going.
Here’s hoping the Spits can keep their heads and play through their fatigue tomorrow: win one more and we get to play for the Big Trophy. Go Spits Go!!!
