The Liners hoped to break out of their two game skid with a strong showing against the tougher Top Shelf. Early on it looked like things were going their way. However, a breakdown in the late second and third periods lead to a tie score. Eventually, the Shelf would score an extra goal and steal victory from the Liners.
The first period began with the teams sizing out each other. But the Liners would soon explode with goals. The Ice Berg and Big Jes would score of rebounds in front of the Shelf netminder with the help of B-hole getting pucks at the net. Dirko weaved his way through the Shelf defense easily fired the puck into the back of their net for another goal. Matty would find a loose puck in front of an empty net after Queen Anne also slipped her way deep into the Shelf zone and fired a shot on goal. The Shelf did get a goal of their own to try to keep up with the Liners.
The second period was the turning point in the game. Ian got his second goal of the game after crashing the net with Big Jes of MK’s clearing pass. Half way into the period, the two rotating centers (matched with three wing pairs) were starting to get exhausted. Sobo moved up to center one line but left the D to rotate 5 players. Minutes later, Liz would get injured and require a further shuffling of the defensive lines to use 4 skaters. The scoring stalled for both teams for the rest of the period.
The momentum swung completely to the Top Shelf in the third period. Liz was back in the lineup to help out on D again. However, the Shelf scored 4 unanswered goals, all but 1 scored by the same player. This catapulted them into the lead, 6-5. Dirko would come to the rescue and again slalom his way through the Shelf and fired a perfect wrist shot pats their goalie to tie the game. Unfortunately, the game winning goal was actually a shorthanded goal as the Liners had trouble gaining control of the puck in their zone while on the powerplay.
Though the Liners lost, it was a better game compared to their first meeting. The line changes were a bit erratic initially but eventually settled down to quick changes to keep players moving. The D had some trouble with clearing pucks out of the zone at critical points. Also, the Shelfs’ best player had multiple scoring chances as he was allowed to get deep into the zone and fire on the Music Man, the Liners’ goalie. As the season progresses, the Liners will continue to work on these major issues and hope to see more victories in their future. Next game is at 11pm on Wed, Nov 20th against the Howitzers.