{"id":823,"date":"2009-05-22T00:05:40","date_gmt":"2009-05-22T04:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/?p=823"},"modified":"2009-05-22T09:34:52","modified_gmt":"2009-05-22T13:34:52","slug":"dale-mitchell-hat-trick-memorial-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/2009\/05\/22\/dale-mitchell-hat-trick-memorial-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Windsor 6, Rimouski 4: Memorial Cup Hipster Doofus Hat Trick Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"dmitch_medium\"<\/a>

Hipster Doofus Makes Good With Clutch Hattie<\/p><\/div>\n

First period:<\/strong> The best early scoring chance went to Rimouski;\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

The opening goal came from Windsor’s Eric Wellwood on a nice pass from Henrique;\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Rimouski roared right back with a goal from Piche, but the Spits had a quick response of their own:\u00a0 a soft goal on a right-wing wrist shot from Scott Timmins past Gougeon’s glove.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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;\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Windsor seemed to begin the period applying excellent early pressure on the Rimouski puck carrier all over the ice.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 When the pressure evaporated somewhat, Rimouski seemed to get its skating legs and to generate some consistent offensive pressure of its own.<\/p>\n

Second period:<\/strong> 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;\u00a0 Watson got caught\u00a0 clearing the puck directly over the unusually low glass in the Rimouski Colis\u00e9e. \u00a0 The Spits killed that penalty thanks to some nice work from Ryan Ellis, Scott Timmins and Lane MacDermid.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The Spitfires very definitely began applying significant and sustained pressure in the offensive zone during this period.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Ben Shutron got his stick up on Boudreau off the ensuing face-off and Rimouski went to the powerplay.\u00a0 Veilleux had two excellent chances, one of which was defused by Timmins and the other of which resulted in an Engelage save.\u00a0 Moments later, Sebastian PIch\u00e9 hit Cormier in stride up the middle to put the Oceanic forward in alone on Engelage.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Cue the 3rd period magic.<\/p>\n

Third period:<\/strong> The Timmins\/MacDermid\/Watson line produced some early pressure in the first two minutes of the period.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Loktionov circled the Oceanic net and centred it.\u00a0 Dale Mitchell had stealthily positioned himself at the top of the crease;\u00a0 Mitchell showed good hands under pressure to recover the puck and slip it past Gougeon to draw the Spits within one.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Mitchell’s quick wrist shot beat Gougeon cleanly high to the glove side and the game was tied six minutes into the third.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0 Moments later, Ryan Ellis took a wrist shot from the point that Gougeon had difficulty controlling;\u00a0 when it dropped to his feet Mitchell was again standing on the doorstep to bang the biscuit home.\u00a0 In three and a half minutes, the Spitfires had gone from two goals down to a one goal lead.\u00a0\u00a0 All of a sudden, the Spitfires could do no wrong and the Oceanic were clearly stunned by their reversal of fortune.\u00a0\u00a0 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);\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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).\u00a0 Desperate to try and even up the manpower situation, Rimouski coach Cl\u00e9ment Jodoin called for the measurement of Andrew Engelage’s goal stick.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

The karma of the Memorial Cup seems to slowly be shifting in the Sptifires’ favour;\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Leaf fans should be thrilled at the performance by Leaf prospect and noted hipster doofus<\/a> 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.\u00a0 He’s not going to be Brett Hull, but he might just have a few twenty goal NHL seasons in him;\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

On to tomorrow night and a rematch against Drummondville.\u00a0 I am convinced that the Spitfires have yet to play their best game in this tournament;\u00a0 they started strong tonight but got a little derailed after running in to penalty trouble and getting burned.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Somebody said something in that dressing room at the end of the second period that focussed the team on the job at hand.\u00a0\u00a0 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;\u00a0 Boughner consistently goes to the Timmins\/MacDermid line (recently rounded out with rookie Andrew Watson) to produce pressure and get his skill players going.<\/p>\n

Here’s hoping the Spits can keep their heads and play through their fatigue tomorrow:\u00a0 win one more and we get to play for the Big Trophy.\u00a0 Go Spits Go!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hipster Doofus Makes Good With Clutch Hattie<\/p>\n

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[741,744,50,748,11,138],"tags":[743,756,1178,757,754,745,1191],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":829,"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions\/829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/heroesinrehab.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}