Jan 04, 2015 | Dan Culbert | 974 views
Plus/minus and GAA take beating in Tourney
The two individual stats within the context of the team game both took a beating in Pickering as the Mortgage Financial 99ers come out of a tough weekend.
While the players have tremendous heart and a never say die attitude in games, the short bench has been a real issue in tournament play where there is little time to recover between games.
In the first game, the 99ers were right in the game down only 3-2 when the buzzer went to end the second period, however a goal was awarded and the disappointment hit the bench hard, as the team sagged in the third and London skated away with a 7-3 victory. Andrew Kitchen opened the scoring with assists going to Will Smith and Kyle Jackman before London scored on a 2 on 1 and then a long shot found the back of the net to go up 2-1 after 1.
Shortly after London made it 3-1 Matt Adkins scored with an assist to Carlo Restelli closed the gap to 1 until the call after the buzzer. London stretched it to 3 but the 99ers again quickly answered when Max Klunder finished of a nifty play with Adkins, before London scored the final 2.
In game 2 the 99ers blew a 2 goal second period lead but then came back to earn a 3-3 tie with Kitchener. In the first, Justin Malcolm exploded off the bench taking a pass from Andrew Brown and fired it home to open the scoring, with Adkins earning the second assist. The lead grew to 2-0 when Adkins picked up a rebound on a Nathan Foster shot and beat the Kitchener goalie from in tight. A short handed effort in the last 2 mins of the 2nd cut the lead to 2-1, and a penalty with 2 seconds left in the period put Kitchener on the PP to start the 3rd and they tied it up on the 5 on 4. With all of the momentum, Kitchener came all the way back 3 minutes later as the 99ers were guilty of a poor effort on the back-check and the goal was the result of the odd man rush. Again the resilient 99ers pushed back to get the tie when Kyle Jackman scored on a 5 on 3 PP with assists going to Connor Vorwald and Zak Culbert.
Game 3 the highly ranked Pickering Rangers were too much for a tired 99er squad as they held leads of 2-0, 3-0, and 4-0 before the 99ers pulled the goalie in the last minute to try to break the goose egg and accomplished this when Matt Adkins took a pass from Zak Culbert and banged on it from the edge of the crease with 33 seconds to play.
Game 4 against the Riverside the 99ers found themselves down 2-0 on a pair of PP goals in the first period. The boys got back into it when Will Smith took a shot that beat the Rangers goalie as Matt Adkins and Max Klunder picked up the assists. The visitors broke the momentum when a tight angle shot made it 3-1 with only 15 seconds to play in the second. Then cue the typical comeback when Zak Culbert found himself alone on the right side and beat the goalie high as Connor Vorwald picked up the assist on the PP. Jonah Ferreira tied it up overpowering the angers goalie with a shot with 4 mins to go as Adkins picked up his 7 point of the tournament with the lone assist. A quick reply followed by a blown call lead to the final goal and the tournament was over as the 99ers fell 5-3.