Spiders celebrate Groundhog Day a week late

Feb. 8, 2015

Three games in a row at SLP E, and three leads squandered, the latest ending in a 3–3 tie with Nighthawks.

The 2014–15 edition of the C3 Spiders is anything if not consistent. For the third week in a row, the Spiders built leads, only to give them away with a bow on top. Each night of the three-game stand at SLP E looked like Déjà vu all over again. From the Blade Runners’ epic late comeback to the Gold Rush tape-to-tape turnovers, all leading up to tonight’s latest inability to hold three leads.

The game started eerily identical to the last two, with Paul Berman starting the scoring, as he’s done every game of the homestand. (Superstitious Spider management was seen considering benching Paul until the Spiders get on the board, in order to avoid future meltdowns.) Assists to Schroeder and Bredael, on a play where Nighthawks netminder and Spider shutdown artist Jenn Stone made two blocker saves, but couldn’t redirect the third, and Spiders up 1–0. That wouldn’t last, when a rocket on the ice from the top of the circles snuck under McCormick.

Early in the second period, the refs started calling the game closer, and put Murphy in the box for a hook in the Spider zone. It took less than 30 seconds of PK for the refs to find their whistles again, sending Litton to join Murphy in the bin. Apparently, that was a wise choice for the Spiders, as “coach” Litton sent Murphy out after his two minutes, and he immediately scored a shorthanded goal after a pressing forecheck to steal the puck. Spider up 2–1.

The lead, of course, wouldn’t last, when an identical play to the Nighthawks’ first goal — a rocket slapshot from the top circle ended up behind McCormick. Tie game.

A trip on Schroeder halfway through the period put the Spiders on their second power play of the night. But in a page out of the usual Spider playbook, it was turnover after turnover, with zero chances. The period closed out with Farner in the box for retaliating after some liberties were taken — but “I didn’t see what the other guy did” — unnoticed around the crease.

Following the PK, the third period consisted of the refs hiding their whistles deep in their pockets. With six minutes to go, the Spiders broke the stalemate, as Mike Johnson was sprung by Schuster, and made move after move into the Nighthawks’ offensive zone, finishing by making a “perfect pass” to Jason Freed in the right place-right time, who was very patient and waited up the dropping goaltender.

With the one-goal lead, the SLP E crowd of 9 familiar with the Spiders scouting report knew what was in store. Sure enough, after the refs made a curious non-icing call and even more curious subsequent faceoff in the Spider zone, the Nighthawks capitalized on the draw, and made a perfect slot play to re-tie the game at 3, with four minutes remaining.

With a lone scoring chance by Murphy in the remaining regulation time, the period ended with 2 seconds on the clock and a Nighthawk icing. But not wanting to keep the overtime winner pool book waiting, the refs let the clock tick down instead of giving the Spiders an offensive zone faceoff.

The five-minute runtime overtime began, and began with the refs again finding their whistles, with Fritz going to the box for hooking. So the Spiders instead spent half the OT on the PK. And all the time in the defensive zone, but McCormick stood tall, and on his head, to keep the three shots that came his way out of the net. And just as the Spiders started gaining momentum thanks to a potential Schroeder coast-to-coast, the puck instead ended up in the Spider bench, Schroeder on the ice, and the remaining seconds frittered away on the runtime clock.

Shots ended close, 27 (13, 8, 6, 0) for the Spiders, and 23 (8, 6, 6, 3) for the Nighthawks, outshooting the Spiders only in overtime.

The latest in the Spiders’ skid drops the Spiders in the C3 East Standings even further into the crowded middle-of-the-pack, with Coach Jim Mora’s words echoing in the Spiders’ dressing room and team bus.

The AHA Captains Meeting is this week, where the league will announce the playoff criteria, with likely the top 5 teams getting in, and the bottom 6 getting golf dates. Right now, the Spiders site just outside, in sixth. But every team around has at least one game in hand, if not two. Meaning the Spiders could potentially drop to 8th by the time the Spiders return to action.

The next game is against the now-in-7th Ice Gators, who beat the first-place Gold Rush Sunday 5–2, and are tied with the Spiders with 14 points. With the schedule somewhat out of order, the Spiders last faced the Gators in mid-December, and came away with a 5–1 win.

Puck drops at Richfield, Sunday, Feb. 15, at 9:15 p.m.