Re-Cap: Everblades vs. Stingrays (2/15/12)

I'm not going to lie and say the Blades played a spectacular game. They didn't. It was a decidedly sub par performance to be honest. A lucky bounce or two and finally showing up to play in the closing minutes did pay off in the end though.

The Stingrays opened up the scoring in the first thanks to a horrible turnover on the power play. Scott Pitt evened it up with 15 seconds left in the period.



The only goal of the second was scored while the Blades best penalty killer, Matheiu Roy, sat in the box for an incredibly weak interference call.There was a moment that the ECHL might get involved in. A bit late in the second former Everblade Tyler Shelast and David Fischer had a huge collision near the bluline. Both players were pretty dazed, but a replay began to be shown on the video board, but was quickly cut off. Why? Because it looked pretty evident that Shelast had, at the very least, aimed very high on Fischer. From my vantage point, the replay made it look like he had his arms up on purpose and made contact with Fischer's head.

The third saw the Stingrays take a 3-1 lead with (this pains me to admit) a beautiful tic-tac-toe play. thankfully, the Blades must have realized they were playing an actual hockey game and finally decided to show up. Cedric McNicoll scored two goals in the last five minutes of the game made it 3-3.  His second goal, scored on the power play with Pat Nagle pulled to give them a 6 on 4, forced OT.

The Blades kept up the strong play in overtime. They held the Stingrays to zero shots on goal and managed to earn the extra point with a lovely goal from David Fischer to take the extra point.

The game summary is here.

The game photos:



Some thoughts:
- It was pretty obvious that the players were completely relieved to walk away with that win.
 - That being said, they really can't continue to slack of for two and a half periods and hope to accomplish anything.
- It's a sad day when the hits of the game are the same guy. Of course Rutherford was the only one who played a full 60. Actually, he's the only player that plays a full 60 consistently.
- The guys are very lucky the League doesn't track turnovers. No one would be called up if that was an a available stat.
- In case you missed it, here's a lovely story from the Puck daddy Blog on Curtis Marouelli making up rules as usual. Anyone surprised? I'm not.