Undefeated

March 26, 2011

Just 11 Spiders close out regular season at 19–0–1 with a 6–4 win over Puck Hounds.

Tonight’s game at New Hope N was the second of a back-to-back with the second-place Puck Hounds. Last weekend’s game ended in a draw, clamping the Spiders’ winning streak at 18 games this season. For this week’s game, the sweaters at both ends of the ice may have been familiar, but the teams filling them were completely different.

For the Hounds, instead of their netminder Guarneri, it was the Lumberjack’s Paul Fee filling in, once he actually got to the arena. And for the Spiders, their player bench had plenty of room to stretch out, as the Spiders dressed only 10 skaters, meaning a full nine players were scratched, healthy or otherwise.

Not scratched, in his first game back after out for two games with a “lower body” injury or two, David Schuster dressed and earned the Outstanding Perseverance award for the night.

Last week, the Hounds outhustled the Spiders most of the game, and Guarneri kept them in it, with Spiders taking advantage of Hound penalties to stay in the game.

This week, the Spiders got on the board early, with two goals just nine seconds apart, and a third two minutes later, setting the tone for the game and putting the Hounds into either desperation mode, or deflated mode. While the Hounds would start to generate chances as the game wore on, Fransen stood tall, and on his head, throughout the night, with the Hounds goals coming when they outnumbered the fatiguing Spiders back in the zone.

Just like last week, each team traded goals, though the Hounds never could catch the Spiders thanks to the 3–0 start. The first ended at 3–1, and the second at 4–3.

Finally, in the third, down 5–4 with two minutes remaining, the Hounds called a time out and pulled their goalie. Unlike last week, when the Hounds capitalized with 26 seconds on the clock with their extra attacker, instead, tonight, at 49 seconds on the clock, C Cody Yard capitalized on the empty net sending a puck all the way from the defensive zone right faceoff dot with just enough English to skid into the yawning net.

The refs also encouraged the Spiders to use their timeout just in case their 10 skaters needed some more time to psyche out the Hounds.

Scoring for the Spiders:

• First period:
  • Jake Cison, shaking off a pregame stick-break, from Nick Ungaro and Paul LaCosse
  • Eric Schlais on the doorstep from Schuster
  • Yard, from Cison
• Second period:
  • Cison, on assist from Paul Fee, who almost drew himself a delay of game for demonstrating the finer points of refereeing at center ice following the goal.
• Third period:
  • With the game-winner, a rocket from the left point through a screen by Eric Grotbeck, assists from Yard and Pettengill.
  • And the empty-netter, by Yard right off the defensive zone faceoff.

In the “almost goal” column:

• In the second, the Spiders scored but had it waved off due to the all-too-familiar “I meant to blow the whistle” call. Cison would get one just a minute later though.
• Also in the second, d-man Paul LaCosse was sprung during a change for a breakaway, but his drag to the left was shut down by Fee.
• And in the third, a LaCosse pass behind the net to his d-man partner caught just enough of Fransen’s post to stay out of the net. Otherwise, it would’ve been a too-close-for-comfort reminder of last season’s first playoff game.

Shots on goal were uneven, unlike last week. Tonight, the Spiders put 30 on Fee (7, 13, 10), and the Hounds ramped it up late, eventually putting on 20 on Fransen (5, 5, 10).

Penalties, a little closer than last week, all came in the third, with the Spiders earning two rests (Pettengill and Wahlberg), and the Hounds were called for three, though one pair coincided (“We don’t do 4-on-4, this ain’t the NHL,” said the Ref). The officiating crew spent much of the night spouting such quotable quips rather than calling the occasional slash, offsides or stiffarms-to-somersaulting-defensemen. Why get in the way of an entertaining D1 hockey game? (Who can forget such classics as: “I’m sick of skating for pucks; next icing is getting a delay of game.” “I didn’t see what happened before that.” “I had my eye on it the entire time and didn’t see a thing.” “Sure, go ahead, I won’t look.”)

When the horn sounded, the Spiders found themselves in a familiar place: back in the win column. Closing out the regular season, the Spiders finish 19–0–1, with 39 points, just one shy of the total possible 40, and the best overall record in the AHA. (D1 East Northern Horde could end just shy, with one game remaining, they sit at 18–1 and 36 points.) The Puck Hounds finish at 14–4–2 and 30 points.

In the season series with the Puck Hounds, the Spiders went 2–0–1; lifetime, which includes one game in the 2010 AHA Fall Tournament, 3–0–1. The three games this season represented some of the closest and most entertaining D1 hockey for the Spiders this season, and the Hounds are sure to give any team a good test in the playoffs.

The Spiders now have 10 days off, so that the rest of the team that wasn’t on Spring Break tonight, can take some R&R. The AHA 2010–11 Winter League Playoffs officially begin a week from tonight, Saturday, April 2. However, thanks to scheduling luck of the draw, the Spiders will wait until Tuesday, April 5 before lacing up again. And when they do, it’ll be to take on the Chaos, and see if they can avoid the epic breakdown of last season’s first playoff game. See the schedule for all round-robin games.

Attendance: 15, and many of them stayed after to watch the Spiders Doubleheader, as the C2 squad took on the Sled Dogs at 9:30 for their final game of the regular season as well. That one also had an exciting finish as it went to OT, and eventually a Spiders win.