Ottawa fell 4-1 to the Rangers last night with Patrick Wiercioch in the pressbox so that fans could truly appreciate Jared Cowen in all his majesty. Michaela Schreiter offers an overview of the game.
The BSens broke their five game losing streak with a solid win over St. John’s. In terms of the lineup Ryan Penny was added to replace the recalled David Dziurzynski; there was also clarification yesterday that Tobias Lindberg is recovering from a minor injury (I Tweeted it out and corrected my previous post), so in essence every healthy body was in the lineup. Matt O’Connor got the start and wins in his tenth start of the season. The play-by-play:
–Stortini opens the game with a lazy interference penalty
–Penny with a goal saving block
1. Harpur loses the battle in front and the puck gets banged in
2. Puempel gets a fantastic pass from Schneider
–Tuzzolino gets hurt in a fight and doesn’t return
-Nice stick-check by Stortini to prevent a scoring chance
–McCormick has an open net but it’s deflected wide by the D
–O’Connor with a nice stop on a 2-on-1
Second
-Nice stop by O’Connor on a slapshot from the top of the circle
–Schneider with a great chance but shoots it high
–Paul takes a dumb boarding penalty
3. Dzingel scores via a tip right in front
Third
4. Dzingel with the steal and finds a wide open McCormick in front
–Kostka with a brutal giveaway in his own zone
–Penny a great chance shorthanded
–Flanagan missed an open net from a bad angle
5. Puempel with the EN
It wasn’t the most entertaining game to watch (other than the third period), but a win is a win and besides the first period they carried most of the play (the PK, despite going 3-3, still looked awful). Speaking of awful, Harpur continues on that trend, but he didn’t play much. ECHLer Nick Tuzzolino was hurt early and that helped the team’s defense quite a bit (of the gruesome foursome Fraser, Lepine, and essentially Tuzzolino were all out of the lineup). O’Connor had his best game since his first this season; Richardson’s forward lines were pretty close to where they should be (given the personnel), so there’s not much to criticize other than they should send Harpur to Evansville and bring up Rutkowski.
Some Evansville updates: assistant coach Johan Lundskog will likely be back with the team around Christmas (in his absence fellow Swede Sebastian Strandberg has been scratched quite often); speaking of Swedes, Christoffer Bengtsberg has nearly recovered from his injury, while the failing Cody Reichard is now on IR himself.
The IceMen lost 6-5 in overtime last night to Quad City, despite leading 5-2 in the third period. Keegan Asmundsen took the loss (the lines were unchanged from the 7-5 loss on Friday). The goals:
1. Leveille throws the puck at the net and it bounces in off the D
2. Trebish passes to the wrong team and on the ensuing possession Trebish gets neither the stick nor the man in front who scores
3. Wideman picks up a slash in the neutral zone and on the ensuing PP Asmundsen is beat top-shelf from the point with no traffic in front
4. Guptill scores as he’s wide open in the slot
5. Leveille is credited with tipping in Rutkowski‘s shot (the scoring on this goal is silly–apparently the scorers had no idea who tipped the shot in so credited all three forwards on the tip)
6. Sims buries Rutkowski‘s rebond
7. On the PK Fawcett steals the puck from the last man back and scores on the 2-on-0 with Leveille
8. On the same PP Asmundsen is beaten by a wrist shot from just above the dot
9. Asmundsen goes down early and slides the wrong way as a wrist shot from the point goes in
10. Leveille throws the puck away and Trebish/Humphries can’t control the bodies in front and the puck gets banged in
11. In OT Rumble has his pocket picked and falls, so the third man is wide open in the slot
There was a lot of interference allowed in the game, but it didn’t benefit one team over another. Guptill seems to have settled in, while Dunn still hasn’t found his rhythm in Evansville. In terms of the lineup I have no idea why Anthoine is playing (I’d rather see Strandberg), but otherwise the main issues are on defense and given the injuries I’m not sure what else the staff can do (barring a trade).
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
3 Comments
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
eyeonthesens 
I think your player evaluation is generally pretty good,but what is this constant lobbying for rutkowski? Who is he your brother in law? He, along with dunn,probably represent the two most bizarre sens signing in recent memory.
It’s less about how good Rutkowski is and more about how bad Binghamton’s defensecorps is–he’s better than Tuzzolino, Lepine, Harpur, and probably Carlisle. He won’t set the world on fire in Binghamton, but he’d make the blueline just a tiny bit better.
[…] team also added assistant coach David Leger, who seems to be replacing Johan Lundskog (so those rumours that he might be back after Christmas now seem […]