The Johnny’s Red Liners hoped to continue their winning ways as they met up with the Irish Clowns. After getting the scoring started early, they never looked back and defeated the Clowns, 9-2.
Tyty began the scoring with an unassisted rapid wrist shot over the Clowns’ netminder’s blocker. For the second goal, Big Jimmeh would find the empty net from a cross slot pass from Mixy. It would be a mere 14 seconds later when Mixy would notch his own goal from the rebound of Dr. Watson’s scoring attempt. On the opposite end, the strong D pairs helped to minimize the shot attempts on Bigfield especially from Davy and The Spout.
Oddly, it would be Tyty again who would the get scoring going in the second period. Sobo’s slapshot from the far point was rebounded to a waiting Tyty who popped the loose puck into the open net. He would also miss another open net off a late cross slot pass from Big Jimmeh. Soon afterwards, Easy E would be in a similar position and able to pop in Prince Pete’s rebound over the Clowns’ goalie’s pads for his first goal. Oddly, the Liners would score another goal after 14 seconds. Big Jimmeh would grab the pass from Tyty and Easy E and find an open corner to fire the puck into the back of the Clowns’ net. The guys in red would fired off multiple pucks at Clowns but would ring them off posts. The D continued their clamping down on the Clowns’ offense. The Clowns would finally get on the board in the closing minutes as the Liners had trouble holding back several of their offensive rushes. The Liners did have a power-play in the closing ninety seconds of the period but were unable to capitalize on it. There was one goal credited to Dr. Watson that was apparently not record in the stats and scoreboard. Video evidence does not exist to confirm or refute this goal.
The third period scoring would not start with Tyty but by the Clowns as the Liners had difficulty clearing the puck out of their zone. But an errant clearing pass by Clown defensemen changed the momentum. This D-man lifted up Easy E’s stick to prevent him from catching a pass. He then took the pass and tried to pop it over his own net but ended up scoring instead. Easy E was awarded the goal. Minutes later, B-Hole almost had a goal by battling in the slot but couldn’t finish. Big Jimmeh would get his hat-trick after deflecting Sobo’s slapshot from the near point and into the net. The Liners got called for two more penalties in this period: Mixy for interference and Prince Pete for roughing. Again, the D were able to wall up the Clown’s offense for these penalty kills especially by Pope Don and Queen Steph who also had a scoring attempt that just went wide of Clown goalie.
The team leaders were happy with the play overall. They remarked on two breakdown during those two goals: bunching up and letting the opponents skate deep into the defensive zone. These will be things to work on in future games. Though two goals were let in by the Red Liners, they did go 2 games and 26:24 without letting up a goal. This is the second longest shutout period over the last six C3 seasons (2010 Devils went 2 games and 37:19). The 2011 Devils had 6 shutouts. The Red Liners will need 3 more to tie that record. They retain their first place position and next meet the 4-4 Rats on Sat, Nov 23 at 10:50pm (JIH East).