After last night’s game, the lines saw some shuffling, though the roster itself remained the same.
First Period
- Teigan Zahn crushes a guy, and Joe Cannata flashes the leather. Getting the crowd into it right off the bat!
- Joseph Mizzi to the box with a double minor for high-sticking.
- Cannata looking particularly sharp. He’s made a couple of nearly identical pad saves followed by a quick stick to bat the puck out of danger.
- Grayson Downing with a big block there.
- Downing showing off the physical side of his game with 13:00 to go.
- Pretty good looking defense tonight. On the other hand, it’d be really nice to get some shots of our own…
- Eric Freschi with a tremendous takeaway in the offensive zone with half a period to go.
- Haha that’s what happens when you hit a Moose. The moose is fine, you fall over.
- KC strikes first on a late power play…where have I heard that one before…
- McDonald is far too good a goalie only get one shot on and expect good things to happen.
- End of 20, shots 7-2 for KC, who leads 1-0.
Second Period
- That’s more like it. The Grizzlies have already doubled their shot count, and we’re not even two minutes in.
- Ausmus rings iron, shots are now 8-4 in a much better second.
- Nice crisp breakout from the Downing line.
- Mizzi is robbed on a point blank chance, and just like that, shots are an even 8-8.
- Aaaand Greg Betzold beats Cannata on the rebound.
- Cannata bobbles a seemingly routine save, and it’s 3-0.
- Ottenbreit with a huge shot, and Zahn lays a big hit, which the fans appreciate.
- Oooh some animosity brewing.
- Maxwell didn’t miss by much…
- After evening up the shots, KC is once again out-shooting Utah 18-9.
- Shutout Shutout Shutout Shutout Shutout Shutout Shutout Shutout Shutout Shutout Shutout Shutout Shutout Shutout Shutout Shutout Shutout Shutout Shutout Shutout
- Freschi’s stick goes flying up in the air, and he catches it, to the crowd’s great delight. Wonder if he’s good at juggling…
- Dickinson didn’t miss the net by very much there. He’s so sneaky good.
- Well. Marchment takes a penalty.
- AND NOW THERE’S A CRAZY SHIFT, AND WATSON TO THE BOX.
- Well. That was not ideal.
- 3-0 for KC after two.
Third Period
- Pretty good shift here from Marchment and company now that all the penalties are killed off.
- It didn’t pan out, but what a crafty move from Downing.
- Downing playing with some passion there. He’s definitely not entertained.
- Every other sentence seems to be about him tonight, but he’s been good.
- Anderson absolutely wails on a guy, and gets five and a game.
- Really nice short-handed shift from the boys.
- Ah great. We just go from bad to worse.
- Walters to the box and Richart as well, because reasons.
- …As bad as Richart getting a 10 minute misconduct is…that’s 10 minutes in which he can’t get hurt as this game goes nowhere good in a hurry…if you want to look at it from the very, very, very faint bright side…
- What a shift from Walters as he flew out of the box!
- Obviously, penalties aren’t the reason the Grizzlies are currently losing. But KC definitely hasn’t played as clean a game as the score sheet would indicate…
- And the fans are not happy about it.
- Hate to sound like a broken record, but…as AD used to say…I don’t know about that…
- Zahn’s penalty is killed, and Ottenbreit throws a thunderous hit!
- Well. If you can’t score a ton in front of a big crowd, at least entertain them with big hits, and a surprising fight from Mitch Maxwell!
- As bad as this game has been, and as many penalties as Utah’s taken, they’ve only got one power play goal against them. That’s pretty impressive.
- That is the second short-handed dash from Walters and Downing that SOMEHOW didn’t beat McDonald.
- Welp. I guess that winning streak had to come to an end sometime.
- Utah falls 3-0.
“First off, they played hard.” said Tim Branham after the game. “They came at us hard, we tried weathering the storm, obviously got behind the eight ball early with penalties. Definitely a lopsided affair on the referee’s part. You have the linesmen out there calling penalties, the reason it gets out of hand is because they don’t call the penalties, and they don’t keep it under control. Hockey players handle it themselves. Unfortunately, we face that a lot here with our part-time linesmen, they always seem to have it out for us, but it is what it is.
“I thought there were times where we could have played better,” he added. “I thought we played extremely hard, it’s tough when the power plays were eight to one, the one power play we had was 37 seconds. I definitely saw some penalties out there that could have been called. But it is what it is. I thought the boys played really hard, I was really proud of them, and we gotta regroup here and come back on Monday.”
Despite the lopsided penalties, the Grizzlies only allowed one power play goal — a testament to their defensive abilities.
“I thought our PK was good,” Branham said. “The one that they scored was off of a face-off, and just got a quick shot, nothing structurally or anything like that. It is what it is, those bounces happen, kind of like their one yesterday. I thought we played really well, they had what, three five-on-threes tonight, an extended one for over a minute, and then two shorter ones, the effort is there. We’ve got an unreal team, unreal character, and definitely proud of the way they played. We got the short end of the stick, 100% in front of 8,500 fans and the commissioner here. They couldn’t find one penalty on them. It’s pretty sad.”
The Grizzlies’ eight game point streak and five game winning streak came to an end, as all good things must, but there were valuable things that came from it that will continue to stand the team in good stead going forward.
“We came together as a team, no matter who was in our lineup. Guys are understanding what it takes to win games, I think. Playing short-handed a lot with new guys who aren’t used to playing in this league, it’ll take a toll on you. So when you’re killing that many penalties, you’re really relying on your veteran core guys as well, so they’re getting a lot of ice time as well. It was a good streak, that’s for sure. We’ve got to make sure we put this one behind us and start a new streak.”
Monday’s matinee game against the Mavericks is gonna be a big one.
Photo courtesy of Action Sports Photography and staff.
If you like the work I do on the blog, please consider supporting me by buying me a coffee! (Or, if we’re being quite honest, a tea!)
belowthehashmarks.com 