Oct 24, 2011 | Dan Culbert | 237 views
99ers Drop One Goal Game to Knights
Ben Beechey was the star of the game as the 99ers dropped a 2-1 decision to the London Kinghts at home. Even though he took the loss, the Brantford goalie made numerous outstanding saves as the home team was badly outshot by the quicker London team.
Despite the outcome, the 99ers showed some positive signs of improvement putting forth a gutsy effort against the Knights. The game was one more of mental errors as the Brantford team worked hard, but provided the Knights with opportunities from unforced errors and weak sloppy puck movement. This was evident on the first goal as after killing off a penalty called in the first minute of the game, once back at even strength, the home team failed to clear the puck three times and the Knights took advantage of the resulting scrambled play to slip the puck past Beechey on a nice reverse at the side of the net 24 seconds after the penalty ended. Poor first passes and decisions with the puck on the powerplay resulted in the home team failing to capitalize on 3 first period man advantages as the period ended 1-0 for the visitors.
The home team was provided with another advantage about half way through the 2nd, but after some good chances, and a blast from Andrew Schunk which beat the London goalie cleanly only to find the post, another bad decision by a forward turned the puck over giving the Knights a 2 on 1 chance and they capitalized on the short handed opportunity to go up 2-0. Less than 2 minutes later, Brantford was awarded a penalty shot when Brayden Dickenson sent Jamie Kelly in alone and he was hauled down from behind as he cut through the London defense. Kelly moved in and made no mistake beating the London goalie clean with a quick shot high up under the bar on the glove side to cut the deficit to 1. London came on strong in the later stages and Beechey made several good stops to keep the score 2-1 fighting through traffic to find the puck. Brantford had a chance to tie the game late in the period when London was called for another minor penalty, but the opportunity was wasted when they took a penalty of their own 30 seconds later nullifying the advantage.
London took a penalty early in the 3rd to provide a 4 on 3, but again turnovers plagued the home squad and London killed it off without much of a threat being mounted. Only a few minutes later, Brantford was again provided an opportunity to go on the PP, this time for 4 mins due to a double minor. This time the home team moved the puck better, hustled for loose pucks and won puck battles to keep sustained pressure on the Knights as the pushed for the equalizer. However, the mental mistakes returned as with about 90 seconds left in the double minor, and after a battle in from of the London net, the home team took a major penalty for slashing ending the advantage and providing the visitors a PP of their own from the differential. The knights took advantage of the gift, and pushed the pace of play for the rest of the game. Brantford compounded their own problems and ruined their chances for a comeback by taking another 5 penalties in the last 5:44 mins of the game providing the Knights with two 5-3 advantages. London had a tremendous amount of good chances as the penalty killers were worn down and with the sustained pressure unable to change. The visitors took advantage of tired legs creating traffic and screens while blasting shots from the point, or coming off the wall for shots and passing for a back door opportunities from low cycles. The resulting chances should have ballooned the score to 4 or 5 to 1, but Beechey again made numerous stops in an attempt to hold the team in it.
Next up is a road game to London to take on the Nationals.