Possible Playoff Matchup

Our Wednesday night action involved the Lions playing the Norsemen.  These teams currently make up spots 4 and 5 in the standings, so if the playoffs were to begin today, they'd be facing each other in round 1.

The two teams played an evenly matched game to start, as you might expect from the standings, with the Norsemen holding an edge in high percentage scoring chances.  Though it was down in their own end that the puck was working it's way around the net.  Dustin Hall came out from behind the net and spotted Brandon Marsh making room for himself in the slot.  Hall fired a pass, but he really put too much on it, making it near impossible for Marsh to get a stick on it, and the puck sailed right through the slot and out to Pete Swistun covering his point man.  Swistun and Ryan DeWolfe did some great quick passing and they were out of their zone with Mike Bourgeois rushing up to be involved in the play.  DeWolfe found him and he cut in and got ahead of the Lions D by a half step, but it was enough to get him a shot on goal.  The puck bounced around the equipment of Jamie Wutke and crossed the line by just a couple of inches as the Norsemen grabbed the first lead of the game.

No-one else could manage to bulge the twine in the first period, so we made our way to the second.  A minute into the period, the two captains, Blake Isenor and Dustin Hall, were heading into the Norsemen zone for a loose puck.  Isenor got there first and miscalculated the direction Hall would go, and the puck was stripped from him and sent into the slot where Jamie Richard was open.  Jamie went to the backhand for a shot and it slid off his stick and wide of the net, but in doing so, it went off a Norsemen skate and into the net to tie the game.

Matt Gendron found himself on a breakaway for the Lions and he made a move as best he could, but he was getting hooked and his shot was an easy one for Pate to stop.  The Lions went to the power-play and got a couple good shots on goal, but Pate was equal to the task.

Gendron got another breakaway, this time he was in all alone without back pressure.  He deked to the backhand and the bench jumped to their feet as his shot hit the back of the net, but not like the good back of the net where it goes into the net, no, the back side of the net, where it's no goal, and everyone sits back down and says "oh man, I thought that was in".

Things got a little heated as Jamie Richard was going to the net and Mike Bourgeois rode him into the goalie, though Richard didn't make much effort to avoid the collision.  A couple Norsemen grabbed him, one jabbed the back of his leg with the stick, but no calls.  Off the next draw there was a little action happening and a Norsemen player tried to clear the puck behind their net, away from the dust up.  The puck instead went off the stick of Hall, the foot of Brandon Marsh, and right to Jamie Richard who tucked it in.  Jamie didn't make much a massive backwards skating drop to the knee, fist pump as the Lions took the 2-1 lead with 8 minutes still to play.

There was no quit in the Norsemen game and they pressed for a goal.  Brendan Hawboldt could only watch from the bench as his team worked the puck around.  He could have played, but by forgetting a shin pad, he kinda ruled himself out to avoid injury.  He would have been a useful addition as he's great at getting shots through and his team struggled to get the puck to the Lions goal.

In the final minute, Connor Tousignant made a great pass to Stephen Warwick at the side of the net, but Jamie Wutke was there to deny him, and the clocked ticked down to zero, the Lions holding off the Norsemen and picking up the much needed 3 points.  A win for the Norsemen would have moved them up to 3rd place ahead of the Evergreens, but instead these two teams remain in the middle of the pack.