I’m now fully caught up on the BSens games, having watched those I missed while attending my father’s funeral. As with the last post I’ve slightly truncated my usual format to prevent the text wall from becoming overwhelming. Before I break down the games though, I’ll reiterate what I said on Twitter: the most obvious thing a coach impacts is special teams and discipline. Where are the BSens in that respect? PP 27th, PK 30th, and PIMs 30th–how does this report card get a thumbs-up from the org? Kleinendorst can blame his roster all he wants–while the BSens were never going to set the AHL on fire, they are better than this.
Belleville 1, Binghamton 6 (boxscore)
Lineup
Hogberg (eleven key saves)/Driedger (three key saves)
McCormick-O’Brien-Blunden
Paul-White-Rodewald
Perron-Reinhart-DiDomenico
Werek-Flanagan-Gagne
Englund-Burgdoerfer
Murray-Jaros
Lajoie-Erkamps
I’ll reiterate the theme for most of this season: TOI and combinations don’t make a lot of sense.
Goals
1. Binghamton – shot from the slot via a nice pass through traffic
2. Binghamton – low far side from the dot on a 3-on-2
3. Binghamton PP – 4-on-2 after the shorthanded chance–keeps and scores short side
4. Binghamton PP – one-timer from the top of the circle
5. Binghamton PP – high shot through a crowd
6. PP Jaros wrister from the hashmarks
7. Binghamton PP – one-timer from the dot
How do you give up this many penalties? The other crazy thing is neither goaltender played that badly–in fact, Hogberg was mostly good (if rough around the edges). The BSens, including their coach, showed an inability to control themselves and losing control cost them four goals–four. Ridiculous.
Notable Plays
Lajoie with a nice defensive play to break up a 2-on-1 (first); Erkamps got turned into a pylon (first), but Bingo missed the net; Blunden couldn’t get a shot off on a 2-on-1 (second)–his inability to skate causes him so many problems; Englund got into another pointless fight and lost (third).
Belleville 0, Wilkes-Barre 6 (boxscore)
The feed for Wilkes-Barre is awful–like watching through a film of mud; the WB broadcaster tries way too hard to imitate his NHL counterpart.
Lineup
Driedger (seven key saves)
DiDomenico-Chlapik-Rodewald
Perron-Paul-Gagne
McCormick-O’Brien-Blunden
Werek-Reinhart-Randell
Lajoie-Burgdoerfer
Englund-Jaros
Murray-Erkamps
On paper there are improvements to the lineup (org pressure putting Chlapik on the first line), but why is Randell playing? It’s one of life’s great mysteries. Lajoie did not play as much as you’d hope given the lineup.
Goals
1. Wilkes-Barre – Driedger beat high from a long way out
2. Wilkes-Barre – Driedger beat high from a shot from the boards
3. Wilkes-Barre – Murray turns it over which causes a 2-on-1, where Burgdoerfer decides to chase the puck-carrier leaving the other man wide open to score
4. Wilkes-Barre PP – the puck is bounced in off Driedger from behind the goal line
5. Wilkes-Barre – shot from the point through a screen
6. Wilkes-Barre – one-on-four the Penguin walks through the forwards and beats
This wasn’t a Rembrandt from Driedger, but it wasn’t as bad as the score indicates either and even the second coming of Dominik Hasek can’t win if you don’t score goals.
Notable Plays
Lajoie with a great save along the blueline to keep up offensive pressure (first); kind of funny seeing WB’s McKegg favouring Chlapik’s usual play of circling behind the opposition goal and skating to the blueline to pass the puck off to the defenseman (first); Reinhart gets pushed into the net resulting in a large cuddle party after the whistle (third); Chlapik with a fantastic steal and pass (third).
Both of these games were ugly, with the BSens shooting themselves in the foot against Binghamton. Chlapik was recalled to Ottawa (alas) and the team re-signed Chris Kelly to a PTO because the struggle to score goals needs to be just that much more painful. The only motivation to keep the eyes on the team now is watching prospects and hoping for a change in coaching philosophy that let’s them all play.
My original intention was to do a summary and analysis of the team for December, but as we get further and further away from that I might just go through all the games since November rather than cutting if off at the 31st–stay tuned.
This article is written by Peter Levi (@eyeonthesens)
1 Comment
Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI
eyeonthesens 
[…] Catching Up on Belleville’s Games (Part Two) […]