Re: Plattsburgh State Hockey 2011-12 - The work and progress continue..
As far as the game:
I'll start with the key penalties...
The hitting-from-behind major/ejection against Kaye was warranted. No real explanation for that, but Bob will be asking for one, I'm sure.
The fighting penalties were warranted. It started with the cross check by Matteau. Good call, the ref got it right away. Both players went down, Sollows got up first. Then Matteau tripped Sollows before he even fully got to his feet, thus the tripping minor. Sollows got up and confronted Matteau, starting the "fight". There were no punches thrown, but the players latched onto one another and it took the refs more than a minute to separate them.
Shoulder-to-shoulder contact at the end of a race to the puck on a waved-off icing somehow gets called contact-to-the-head elbowing? Or a player with possession of the puck who turns to escape the defender who's wrapping his arms around him gets called for interference?
In retrospect, I didn't really have a problem with the officiating until the 3rd period. Horrible calls against Plattsburgh, some huge missed penalties (which is not to they didn't miss some against Plattsburgh, too). One of there guy breaks his stick across Alex Jensen's spine with a good two-handed whack, prompting Jensen to immediately seek the trainer on the bench (which was, thankfully about 3 feet away), and the ref calls NOTHING?
Needless to say, I left extremely frustrated with the performance of the officials. Not a great way to inaugurate the 4-official system in SUNYAC play.
But the officials weren't the only ones on the ice...
USA: Pretty much exactly what I expected. They had size, speed, and talent. They started putting in some dirty shots towards the end as they got frustrated with how hard Plattsburgh was checking, but for the most part I was as impressed as I thought I would be.
Plattsburgh: Holy crap. This team played fantastic. They do have some kinks to work out, but they're starting from a good place. They skated fast and hard from the get-go; more than 3 minutes had passed in the 1st before USA had an offensive zone possession. Like loudhorns said, they weren't afraid to hit, either. And with the new big guys on the blue line, this is set to be a very physical team. Speaking of those new guys - I had been worried about the inexperience in defense after all that we lost, but I was pleseantly surprised with their defensive performance. The 1st-period goal was the only exception to that. Leis was fantastic the whole 1st period, with a lot of key saves. On the goal, he did a great job to kick out the legs to block the shot, but his D failed to cover the rbound, meaning an easy goal was to be had by USA. The 2nd period goal was just great powerplay execution by the USA on the 5minute penalty.
They have a little time now to work out the kinks, and to stop taking stupid penalties. But overall, I think this will be a good year for Plattsburgh.
As far as the game:
I'll start with the key penalties...
The hitting-from-behind major/ejection against Kaye was warranted. No real explanation for that, but Bob will be asking for one, I'm sure.
The fighting penalties were warranted. It started with the cross check by Matteau. Good call, the ref got it right away. Both players went down, Sollows got up first. Then Matteau tripped Sollows before he even fully got to his feet, thus the tripping minor. Sollows got up and confronted Matteau, starting the "fight". There were no punches thrown, but the players latched onto one another and it took the refs more than a minute to separate them.
Shoulder-to-shoulder contact at the end of a race to the puck on a waved-off icing somehow gets called contact-to-the-head elbowing? Or a player with possession of the puck who turns to escape the defender who's wrapping his arms around him gets called for interference?
In retrospect, I didn't really have a problem with the officiating until the 3rd period. Horrible calls against Plattsburgh, some huge missed penalties (which is not to they didn't miss some against Plattsburgh, too). One of there guy breaks his stick across Alex Jensen's spine with a good two-handed whack, prompting Jensen to immediately seek the trainer on the bench (which was, thankfully about 3 feet away), and the ref calls NOTHING?
Needless to say, I left extremely frustrated with the performance of the officials. Not a great way to inaugurate the 4-official system in SUNYAC play.
But the officials weren't the only ones on the ice...
USA: Pretty much exactly what I expected. They had size, speed, and talent. They started putting in some dirty shots towards the end as they got frustrated with how hard Plattsburgh was checking, but for the most part I was as impressed as I thought I would be.
Plattsburgh: Holy crap. This team played fantastic. They do have some kinks to work out, but they're starting from a good place. They skated fast and hard from the get-go; more than 3 minutes had passed in the 1st before USA had an offensive zone possession. Like loudhorns said, they weren't afraid to hit, either. And with the new big guys on the blue line, this is set to be a very physical team. Speaking of those new guys - I had been worried about the inexperience in defense after all that we lost, but I was pleseantly surprised with their defensive performance. The 1st-period goal was the only exception to that. Leis was fantastic the whole 1st period, with a lot of key saves. On the goal, he did a great job to kick out the legs to block the shot, but his D failed to cover the rbound, meaning an easy goal was to be had by USA. The 2nd period goal was just great powerplay execution by the USA on the 5minute penalty.
They have a little time now to work out the kinks, and to stop taking stupid penalties. But overall, I think this will be a good year for Plattsburgh.
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