Sacré Noir

Opening up our Tuesday night was a tilt between David Lacey’s Aurora and Connor MacPherson’s Greyhounds.  The Aurora had first overall pick this winter and their top gun, Matt Ryder, was finally set to make his season debut.  He stepped on to the ice with a shiny new bucket, a new neckguard, and his old sense of self confidence. 

 

10 seconds into the game, a Mike Gilmore shot from the point ended up on Nathan Bessey’s stick behind the goal line near the Greyhounds goal, and Bessey nearly opened the scoring with a bank shot off Logan MacLean, but it ended up getting cleared from the crease by Noah Joncas just before Steve Power could bang it in.  Back up ice, Greg Delano tried picking the corner but Nick Stryniak gloved it easily.

 

Bobby Sacre picked up a puck in the neutral zone and fed Matt Ryder in the middle of the ice.  He made two moves and shot a wrister from distance, surprising Logan MacLean and beating him off the post and in to his left.  1-0 Aurora.

 

The Aurora extended their lead when Bobby Sacre passed to David Lacey in front.  Lacey missed the pass but it went off his skate and he then got his stick to the puck, lifting it over the shoulder of Logan to make it 2-0.

 

Bobby Sacre, having a great few minutes of hockey, forced a turnover in his own zone and decided that the only pizza he was serving through the middle tonight was going to be after he skated through everyone and shot the puck through the middle of Logan’s legs.  3-0 Aurora.  Greasy Rowan Ayers then shot the puck in the net again as it came out, but no fights erupted.

 

It was not looking very good for the Greyhounds and it got worse when Sacre was picking up his 4th point of the game as he poked at a rebound off a Dave Matthews shot and Matt Ryder was right there to bury that second rebound. 4-0 Aurora with 7 minutes to go in the first.

 

The Greyhounds could have easily just given up, but off a Brock Bethune faceoff win in the Aurora zone, he handed the puck off to Jeff Snow, and Snow put a shot off the post and in to make it 4-1.  David Lacey tried responding off the ensuing draw, but Logan made the glove save on him.

 

At the 3 minute mark Chris Ryder had a semi breakaway as he came down the left wing with Kyle Ervin in the middle of the ice, a bit behind the play.  Ryder took the shot and Logan made the pad save into the slot.  Before Lacey could get there, Drew LeFrank cleared it out of harms way and to Connor MacPherson.  Connor hit Delano who went into power forward mode.  In a revenge move, he broke both of Bobby Sacre’s ankles with a toe drag and then went left to right on Stryniak and roofed his shot to cut the lead to 4-2.

 

59 seconds later, Bryan Gillis fanned on his first shot and his second went off the post but Brock Bethune knocked it out of the air to cut the 4-0 lead down to 4-3 with under 2 minutes left in the opening period.

 

The second period would not be as high octane at the first, though it would start much the same way as the first did, with 5 minutes of no scoring, helped in large part by a few big saves by MacLean including getting a shoulder on a Matt Ryder chance, and a toe on a slot shot from Adam Jarvis.

 

Bobby Sacre would get some insurance for the Aurora when his wrister from far out beat the glove of MacLean.  The shot was on Logan’s blocker side, but he tried the glove on the play and ended up watching his water bottle flip up and over the net.

 

The Greyhounds got that one back as Mat McLeaod ruined Rowan’s night as he broke up a back door pass in front of his own net and Brock Bethune got it out to Bryan Gillis whose breakaway ended up tickling the twice and we had a game once more.

 

Josh Beaudreau shot one off the crossbar from the point 2 plays later, and despite a botched breakaway by Lacey and some traded chances, the teams couldn’t find another time to beat the goaltenders, even with the Greyhounds having a lot of zone time in the latter stages of the period.  When Logan MacLean got pulled, that was when we’d see another goal, and it wasn’t off Lacey’s stick, though with the open net and no-one in front of him, it should have been,  no, he missed the net.  It was Matt Ryder completing the hatty after Bessey knocked the puck off a Greyhound stick at the blue line.

 

The Aurora looked like a much better team with Matt Ryder in the lineup, but Bobby Sacre had a career high with 5 points in the win and in the post game media scrum, he was asked about his contributions to which he probably replied; “I just go out there and try to forget everything about playing defence and focus on putting up big numbers.  That’s why I’m here and David Lacey needs to remember that when I’m on the ice.” Lacey was unavailable for comment (probably the craziest thing ever written).