The teammates of the American Heartland Liners were capping off a hockey filled weekend with a tough game against the top-ranked Snatchers. After braving the blowing snow, they had to confront a team with a strong offense. It would be a few breakdowns in defense that would ultimately lead to the 4-2 loss for the Liners.
The first goal of the game would be scored by the Liners from a new member of the team. Tommy E, The Greek, was brought up from the minors to fill in for defense. He took the puck coast to coast and fired a wrist shot at the Snatchers’ goalie. The rebound was put in by AJ, his defensive pair. Minutes later, the Snatcher tied up the goal after the Liners had trouble clearing the zone. Jake had a shot toward the goals but saw it go wide.
The second period scoring was all Snatchers. Within the first minute, the Snatchers jumped in the lead by popping in a loose puck from the slot after the Liners were unable to move bodies out of the zone. But the guys in red fought back with more pucks at the Snatchers’ net. Later in the period, ThomThom would get called for his first penalty ever (tripping) which the Liners successfully killed. After the penalty expired and the Liners tried to even up the lines, the Snatchers bombarded the Liners’ goalie, the Music Man, with shots. One rebound ended up bouncing just inside the post. The scoring momentum continued for the Snatchers as they notched their third goal of the game a few minutes later with a cross-ice pass to the slot where a waiting Snatcher backhanded the puck. While the forwards I-Berg, Yaz, Daddy and Franco had good scoring changes when aggressively crashing the net. Mikey and AJ on D took solid slapshots at the net from the blue line. Kris, Mr. Powers and Chris, the Doctor, quickly got pucks back into the offensive zone for their teammates to forecheck.
The third period was more of a back-and-forth affair. Matty S had a good backchecking stop while Eric the Red blocked a clearing attempt in the Snatchers’ zone. ThomThom cleared the puck along the boards when needed. Evan and Mikey had a breakaways as they became more comfortable with the puck. The only goal of the period would be in the final minutes from Jessie after receiving a pass from AJ and deking a D-man and goalie.
A tough fought game with better movements and batted pucks down the ice. No offside difficulties however. The Liners will still need to work on positioning and breakouts. Several goals resulted from bunched up players and leaving opponents unguarded/unchallenged. The breakouts were better but teammates still had trouble receiving passes and cross into the offensive zone. Their next game is a rematch against the Snatchers, 10:30pm on Monday, Jan 27th.