Playoffs Get Underway

We actually got through a few shifts without too much action of any consequence.  The Eurekas got their first shot on goal from about the blue line as Jordan Kenny rushed up ice and shot the puck as the Osprey D pressured him.  Matt Baird stopped it easily, but let a massive rebound out in front of him and Rowan Ayers was sitting there all alone.  Red Hot Rowan shot the puck, which Baird couldn’t track and he got a piece of it, but it went through and hit the post behind him.  The puck bounced directly to the opposite side of the net where Jordan Kenny was sitting as he didn’t stop skating after dumping the puck in.  He tucked in the easy goal to give the Eurekas a rare lead.

The Osprey were in shock.  They had 3 players arrive late to the game and their lines were in disarray.  Nathan Stressey worked to get his team in order through the line mixing chaos, and then the Eurekas dumped a puck into the corner.  The Zamboni door corner.  You see where this is headed.  Matt Baird was heading behind the net to play the puck when it hit the door and came out in front to Marcus Briand.  Baird dove to get back into the net, but Briand was first and the Eurekas shocked the hockey world by going up 2-0.

On the bounce back shift, Keith Webb took a one timer in the slot, but right into the chest of Ashton Speight in the Eurekas goal.  Ashton was getting peppered.  Despite his team being up 2-0, the Osprey were the better team as they controlled the puck.  The Eurekas were playing to keep the Osprey off the board rather than to score.  The game was getting a little intense and the stream of players to the penalty box was steady.  Despite their best efforts, the Osprey couldn’t score in the first period, and things were getting interesting.  17-5.  The Eurekas were being outshot by 12 shots after one period, but clung to the lead.

One thing people know about Osprey star Matt Ryder is that he likes to ramp up his game in the second period.  2 minutes into the second, the Eurekas made a mistake.  Bobby Sacre went for the long bomb pass, missing everyone and going all the way down the ice.  Speight could have played the puck as it bounced off the end boards, but he didn’t, and Ryder beat everyone else there as the puck came out to the front of the net.  He quickly grabbed it and deked to his backhand across the net.  Speight followed and as the shot came in, he knocked the net off for the 5th time, but the puck was already going in, and the Osprey were now within a goal.

The penalties were still coming for the Eurekas, first with a 5 minute major for high sticking as Ethan DeBruyn cut in on a breakaway and Zack Walsh took him down.  Ethan needed to head to the room to deal with the split lip he received.  While already down a man, the Eurekas took another high sticking penalty and the Osprey had a 5 on 3.  Jordan Webber made a diving attempt to clear a puck at the line, hitting it once and then just missing the puck to go the extra distance as Nathan Bessey came in and picked it up.  He took a wrister from the ringette line and beat Speight on the blocker side to tie the game up.

The Osprey were feeling good and continued their onslaught.  Speight made some big saves, including 3 in a row as he did his best Hasek impression.  We were starting to wonder if this game could see the shootout when Matt Ryder sniped a beauty on the short side while on another power play with 3:41 to go.

The Eurekas had their first bit of puck possession in the Osprey zone as they pulled the goalie in the last minute, but it wouldn’t work out for them on this night as they dropped game 1 by a score of 3-2.  They will play game 2 next Thursday.

On the next rink were the Aurora and Tigers.  This game would prove to be a bit of an opposite game in that there would be few penalties but many goals, the first one coming 5 minutes in off the stick of Noah Joncas to give the Aurora the head start.  The floodgates hadn’t opened yet, but the shots on goal were working to get there as Logan MacLean and Nick Comeau faced a lot of pucks.  

The Tigers broke through with 5:26 left in the first.  George Murray took a feed from Cobee MacNaughton and buried it to tie the game.  Then Allan Beaton scored to put the Tigers up 2-1 just 2 minutes later.  Brandon Crowell of the Aurora tied it just 30 seconds later and just a minute after that, Chris Stickings took some of the wind out of the Tigers sails as he gave the Aurora their first lead of the night.

The second period started off with a bang.  Just 8 seconds in, Matt McNeil came into the Aurora zone, deked past the D and cut around Logan to tie the game up once more.  McNeil woul next pass it up to Dan Keaysus who put the Tigers up by a goal as he powered the puck to the back of the net.  After the opening goal of the game, there seemed to be an agreement to only score in twos, because after the Tigers took the lead back, Brandon Crowell and Matt Simpson scored back to back to give the Aurora another lead.

Allan Beaton got his second of the night just 30 seconds later to tie it up, and 45 seconds later is where the pattern of abuse was broken.  Matthew Pare made a beauty of a tip to give the Aurora the lead, and they wouldn’t look back.  Stickings scored on the power play, then Lacey would get one, and finally with an empty net, Ray Carrigan would hit the middle from distance to put the game out of reach.  The 9-5 Aurora win sets them up for the potential to sweep when these two teams face off again next Wednesday.