Spiders claw back to tie Blade Runners

Nov. 25, 2017

Spiders give up early lead, overcome post-Thanksgiving Tryptophan to erase a two-goal deficit, and score with 1:21 remaining to salvage a point.

The customary short benches of the after-Thanksgiving game had 12 skaters a side against for the Spiders vs. Blade Runners match Saturday night and were outnumbered by the SLP W crowd of all Blade Runners fans.

The Spiders scored before those fans could even take their bleacher seats, just 31 seconds into the game, Grotbeck from Bullock and Schroeder.

A mess in front of the Spider net led to the Blade Runners tying it back up at 11:14. And they’d get another before the close of the first, in off the defender’s skate.

The Spiders retied the game at 13:21 of the second, now-at-wing Sommerness from now-at-center Johnson.

The remainder of the second was all Blade Runners, capitalizing on a bobbled cover to go ahead 3–2, and then again by the Blade Runners’ leading scorer #28 C. Gallus giving a one-man skills demonstration to go up 4–2.

A high-sticking penalty against the Blade Runners with 3 seconds to go gave the Spiders a power play to start the third. And it took all of 10 seconds for Dave Schuster to begin celebrating the Spiders’ goal. It took the officiating crew longer than that to check video to determine whether the puck had indeed crossed the goal line. Despite legal briefs filed by the Blade Runner goalie, video review prevailed and the Spiders were again within one. That’s the Spiders’ FIRST power play goal of the season, in eight opportunities.

Six minutes later, Mike Schroeder did an end around, looked off the passes out front and snapped it behind the screened goalie to tie the game back at 4.

The Blade Runners answered back with a screened power play goal of their own to retake the lead with 8 minutes to go.

And following a time out to add the extra attacker and a faceoff in the attacking zone, the Spiders won the faceoff, were able to press, and a loose puck to the side of the Blade Runner net was there for Berman to capitalize, tie game!

Some tense back and forth while each team tried to preserve the point led to OT. Each team had a couple of chances, but both goalies were ready, and the game ended appropriately in the neutral zone.

Not only was the score even, the shots were almost even — 29–28, each team was 1 for 3 on the power play, each team had 12 on the bench, and each team got away with far too many non-calls for a C3 game.

The tie keeps the Spiders (2–2–1–1) riding ahead of the middle-of-the-pack C3 East, with six points, enough for fourth place, ahead of the fifth-place Blade Runners (2–2–1–0), and the four teams with four points behind them, Leafs, Hooligans Green, Nighthawks Gold, Wolf-Rayets.

The Spiders take on the Nighthawks Gold next week, another Saturday night game at SLP. The Nighthawks Gold lost to the still-undefeated Fighting Loons 4–2 in a penalty-laden tilt at Oscar Johnson Saturday night.

Puck drop is 9:45, Saturday, Dec. 10, SLP E.