Spiders close out regular season with yet another shutout

March 15, 2009

Taking a cue from the Eden Prairie Eagles’ Saturday shutout in the MSHSL 2A final, the Spiders wrapped up the regular season with their own shutout of the second-place Diablos. While the game would have no impact on either team’s playoff seeding, both teams were coming off losses in last week, and would look to rebound before hitting the playoff circuit in two weeks.

The game was actually relatively evenly matched until the final three minutes. The Spiders did get out to a one-goal lead at 6:14 of the first, on a feed from Mike Johnson to Ryan Herman, who waited out the goalie to beat him to the left corner.

The second period saw an interminable parade to the box, with the refs putting on a whistle clinic on the Diablos. The five straight calls against the Diablos, mostly drawn by Aaron Bedessem, and starting off with former Spider PIM leader Dave Schaefer’s tripping call, did lead to one power play goal by the Spiders, Rob Droullard, camped on the doorstep, on assist from Nick Ungaro and Chris Pettengill.

The third still had its share of penalties, though they would be offsetting, one at 11:42 by Jay “I never get penalties” Hilden, and an offsetting pair of roughing calls for a laying-down Aaron Bedessem and his Diablo dancing partner.

The game finally broke open, as Mike Johnson took advantage of a line change to feed Cory Vandenberghe, who put the Spiders up 3–0 with 2:39 remaining.

And just 12 seconds later, #12 Chris Flannery got his due from a recently sprung Aaron Bedessem, and a board-tapping Brian Armagost. Spiders 4–0.

To cap it off, with 1:19 remaining, Chris Pettengill nailed a clanging shot off the Diablos’ goalie’s throat protector, that was dutifully cleaned up by Jay Hilden. Final score: Spiders 5–0.

That means it was netminder Amber Obermoller’s record third shutout of the season! Amber saw 15 shots (5, 5, 5), and made some key saves to get the shutout, along with one additional save made by Rob Droullard.

The Spiders doubled the shot production, putting 30 on the Diablos’ net (13, 7, 10).

The Spiders’ regular season record closes out at 16–1–2–1, and an improbable 35 points in the standings, the best regular season record ever for a Spiders team. A slight turnaround from the 2007–08 record of 3–17.

The Diablos, against whom the Spiders went 2–1 this season, finish in second place with a 14–4–2–0 record and 30 points.

Now comes the wait until the post-season, as the rest of the D1 West teams finish up their regular season schedule to determine the playoff seeding. All we know so far is that the Spiders are the first seed in Pool A and the Diablos are the second seed in Pool B. The Spiders’ first playoff game will be Tuesday, March 31, at 8:45 p.m. at Plymouth against either the Wingmen or the Lumberjacks, each of which represent the two losses by the Spiders this season.

Game media

Game photos courtesy Cory Vandenberghe’s media production services.

Rob Droullard’s (9) second-period goal, with celeb-assists by Nick Ungaro (19) and Chris Pettengill (30).

Chris Pettengill (30) awaits the puck drop.

The Flannery-Bedessem-Vandenberghe line gets out of the way of the ref.

For all game photos, see the Spiders Photo Gallery.