Mark Messier famously guaranteed the NY media that his NY Rangers would win Game 6 of the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals. He backed up this guarantee with a natural hat trick. Johnny’s Red Liners’ own Matty did the same with the Liners reeling from a bad loss against the Quartino Demon Teeth last week. The Kendalls did have a tough assignment for the mid-evening game as they only had six skaters. But a small bench does not guarantee an easy opponent as history can easily document for the Red Liners. This time would be different.
The first period showcased a dominate and patient offensive by the Red Liners. They easily skated around and through their opponent’s defense. By the Kendalls netminder kept them in the game by making several spectacular saves. Seefs who normally plays defense would tally the first goal by deflecting a slapshot into the upper net. The constant offensive threats by the Liners began to wear down the six Kendall skaters.
But the player of the game, Matty, would finally blossom barely in the second period when he crashed the net and popped in a rebound past the sprawled goalie. He would respond to that with his second goal minutes later but wristing the puck over the goalie. The Kendalls tried to swing the momentum the other way by catch the Liners offguard several times with long passes to a cherrypicking opponent at the blue line. The several breakaway attempts with skillfully blocked by the LIners’ goaliek Jimbo. He would also start to play and clear the puck more, almost brazenly at times. Toe would knock in the final goal of the period by stealthfully skating passed the Kendall defense and drifting the puck just past the goalie.
Matty would get his natural hattrick early in the third period by finding the lose puck and sending it through the empty crack by the goal post. Judge Jimmie would cap off all the scoring as his offensive partners orbited around the net and fed him the puck that was wristed in. The night was to end magically until our Player of the Game used his psychological prowess on Jimbo by jinxing him. “You better not lose the shutout.” where his apparent words. Seconds later, the Kendalls found the back of the net for the first and only time of the game.
With the win, the Red Liners continue their see-sawing of winning and losing. They are back to .500 at 4-4-1 at sitting at 7th place out of 10 in the North Conference which appears to be the stronger conference (avg 5.4 GF/game vs. 4.3 in the South Conference). The Liners will take a short hiatus with the Thanksgiving holiday coming up. They will return back on the ice on December 3 at 10:10pm (JIH West) against the Feeny Flyers (4-3-1).