Game 1 Wrap-Up

Now that it's 1:44pm and I'm finally awake.....went to TK's after party last night and got to meet a lot of the players. Far too many people wanted to buy me drinks.

Run-down of the game last night:

• THE WHALERS WIN!!!! THE WHALERS WIN!!!!! (said in my best Gerry Cheevers impression). 4-3 Final. With the way the officiating went it really should have been 6-2, but I'll take it. More on the refs in a bit. 
• There was a standing room only, sellout crowd of 2412 last night! I was talking with a lot of Hatters and Trashers fans who had gone to every game then, and they seemed to agree unanimously that they never saw a crowd this big for those games. Lookin' good people, lookin' good!
• Solid call on both of my points predictions yesterday afternoon: Karlov with 1G1A for a +2 rating, and Malloy with 1G1A for a +3 rating. Even 102 was cheering "Malloy!!!!!!!" on that goal. It truly looked like poetry in motion and, like I said, I think he'll have no problem winning the fans over. 
• The other two goals were scored by Devin Guy and Andrew Willock, on an equally impressive rebound, and wrister, respectively. 
• DiMarzo was held pointless this game, but not for lack of trying. At one point in the second period he deked through all 5 skaters of the other team alone to get a shot on net. I'm expecting big things. 
• Niedert looked SPECTACULAR in net last night. Calm, cool, and collected. We'll see if he gets back-to-back starts tonight. 
• For Danbury, the fighters were: Corey Fulton, Devin Guy, Mike Vallely, JR Bria, and Corey Fulton again.Vallely, although I have to give him a LOT of credit for trying, was the only real definitive loss. The other 4 fights went until they got broken up by the Refs, and more often than not they were going in our favor. Guy actually threw New York's Chris Bain over our bench and started railing on him while he tried to get up. I like. 

Stuff Danbury needs to work on...

• Our Powerplay needs A LOT of work. We had a 5-on3 for 35 seconds in the 2nd and couldn't even take the zone. That should have been an easy goal to give some breathing room. 
• One of my biggest complaints about camp was the fact that the team was doing VERY poorly completing passes. It showed last night. We could have generated a lot more scoring chances had passes not been missed entirely. There's work to be done boys. It was a feel good win, for sure, especially since we beat a team whose pre-season marketing claim was "the only undefeated hockey team" on night 1. 

Stuff the Refs need to work on...

• The volume of non-calls last night was nauseating. Here's a quick summary, in no particular order.
• With 1 minute left in the third, New York takes a shot on Niedert with 6 men on the ice. He gloves it, drops it when the whistle gets blown, and New York #22 Blake Miller snatches it and takes a booming slap shot at the boards, narrowly missing a few Danbury players. Hello, 2 minutes for unsportsmanlike? No call made.
• At the beginning of the second stanza, New York #20 Jesse Felten charges Niedert, bowling him over. Instead of standing up, he rolls over, ON TOP of Niedert, twisting his knee in the process. He sits there for a good 5 seconds before the refs blow the whistle and he stands up. Niedert spent about 2 minutes on the ground and the game was halted to get medical staff to him. Eventually he got up and played the rest of the game. No call made. 
• While we're talking about goalies, Aviators had Druce (#38) in net last night. While he was, for the most part, a solid goalie and I can say no wrong about his skill level...he's a complete goon. Totally my most hated player of the evening. 5:03 in the Third, DiMarzo gets a breakaway, switches backhand to get Druce out of position, and goes back to forehand for what looks like the goal. Instead of trying to block the puck, Druce shoves his stick between DiMarzo's legs, getting a whistle before the puck could go in. A tripping call WAS made, but no shot given. 
• Later, another Danbury 5-4 Powerplay. DiMarzo sets up behind the net, passes into the crease for a lightning-quick wrister and goal. It gets waived off by the refs because the net isn't on the moorings. What happened, in reality, was that Druce slid across the crease to square up, got 5 holed, and kept sliding into the post, knocking it off well after the puck entered the crease. Bad call made. 
• 2nd period, roughly 10 minutes in. Druce gloves a hard slapper, and it falls to the ground immediately. He dives, but misses the puck, which is now sitting in the middle of the crease, unprotected, about a foot away from him for the easy poke-in goal. Refs blow the whistle to stop the play. 
• 2nd period, last few minutes. Druce gets 5 holed and the puck trickles over the line. Everybody in the first 2 columns of 102 over to the beginning of 100 can see clear as day that the puck has crossed the line. The refs blow the whistle and skate over to determine the location of the puck. Just before they get there, Druce kicks it back over the blue line with his heel to get a "No Goal" call from the refs. 

102 certainly let Druce know what they think of him, that's for sure. Look for this to be an ongoing thing. 

I'm not sure what the character of this team is yet because it's too early in the season. But if they're the tight knit family I'm hoping them to be, then they'll stand up for each other. And if that's the case, the entire team owes Aviators #20 a few good hits for his run on Niedert.

Tonight's pre-game notes plus a league recap coming in the next few minutes.