Spiders finish season with 8–4 victory over winless Minnesota Warriors

March 18, 2018

Minnesota Warriors preserve their streak.

The last game of the winter season for both teams was relatively meaningless, except for the Minnesota Warriors, who had gone their entire first season at C3 with zero points in the standings. The mic’d up segment of the broadcast from Wakota/Woog would’ve revealed that the Warriors were interested in preserving their losing streak all the way through.

Instead, risking their perfect record, they started skate-for-skate with Spiders, following Litton’s first goal (in decades), that found its way through off a defenseman’s stick, assist to Elling. Two shifts later, the Warriors’ leading scorer #51 J. Albert followed suit and snapped one through off of the top of McCormick’s stick and in. Five minutes later, Schroeder went coast to coast to put the Spiders up again, assist to McCormick (who ties his assists career high at 7). That lead would last another shift, when the Warriors tied it back up. That pattern continued for one more goal, with Bullock scoring two shifts later. But the late arrival of Vandenberghe to add to the Spiders’ short bench shifted the tide, and on the game’s lone power play, Grotbeck set up Vandenberghe and Johnson scored (instead of Bullock), with a minute left in the period.

In the second, the ice tilt favored the Spiders, with most of the period spent in the Warrior zone, the Spiders outshooting the Warriors 14–4, and outscoring them three-zip, with Johnson from Vandy and Kuhnly (newly promoted back to wing after starting the game demoted to D). Kuhnly added to the Spider lead, first from Vandenberghe, and at the end of the same shift, from Litton, to put the Spiders up 7–2.

That score would hold through most of the third, when the inevitable Rag Doll takedown behind the Spider net gave the Warriors plenty of time in front of the Spider net. “About time,” said Schroeder.

The snoozing Spiders gave up yet another on the following shift, cutting the margin to the dreaded three-goal lead. And almost another, as McCormick was able to stop a puck under his glove right at the line. AHA video was unavailable, but the crowding Warriors and somewhat nearby ref confirmed it was no goal.

So with four minutes to go, the Spiders decided to wake up and clamp down, and eventually added to the lead on a reprise of Schroeder’s coast to coast, which was stopped short by a collision in the slot, and retrieved by Elling, and put away by Johnson, who earned applause for the hat trick from the mostly Warrior Wakota/Woog bleachers. That’s the Spiders first hat trick this season, narrowly rescuing the season from a repeat of the 2013–14 season, where the team had zero hat tricks. The last time the Spiders scored only one hat trick was the 2011–12 season.

With Johnson’s goal, Spiders up 8–4, which is where it would end.

The win improves the Spiders record to 8–10–1–1 and 18 points to finish the season, a slight improvement on last season’s 9th place finish (7–11–2–0 record and 16 points). The Warriors cap their first year at C3 with a perfect 0–20.

With the scoring onslaught, the Spiders’ highest productivity this season, four players notched three points in the game: Elling (3A), Johnson (3G), Kuhnly (2G+1A), Vandenberghe (3A).

With zero box-sits for the Spiders, tonight’s game also set a new team record for most games with ZERO penalties in a season. That’s four games this season where the Spiders avoided the ref’s ire. The previous record was three, set way back in 2005–06, and tied in 2008–09, 2012–13 and 2013–14.

At 96 PIM on the season, this is only the third winter season where the Spiders have finished with UNDER 100 penalty minutes, the previous being the 2015–16 season, and the first in the 2005–06 season, both with just 84 PIM.

Next up for the C3 Spiders … golf. But the top 4 of the rest of C3 moves on to April hockey. Thanks to the Spiders’ generous defeat two weeks ago to the Wolf-Rayets, they amassed enough points to bump the Leafs out of playoff contention with their final victory over the Nighthawks Gold Sunday. The Wolf-Rayets got up early 4-zip, only to have the Nighthawks claw their way back, to a 5–4 final. The Leafs in the meantime lost 3–2 to the Hooligans Green in a special teams extravaganza. The other contender, the Blade Runners, lost to the Maroons 6–3. The Maroons had put up 5 unanswered in the first period, until C3 East leading scorer Gallus got on the board twice.

The final C3 East playoff contingent:

• Fighting Loons
• LED Nord
• Maroons
• Wolf-Rayets

C3 North is also settled, with Mastodons, Mild, Spartans and Dave Sommerness’ Gold Rush making the post-season.

Only C3 West has yet to be finalized, with the Troopers, last year’s last-place Scarlet Rebellion rebranded as the Rebellion, and climbing all the way to second place, and the Marauders, Black Ice and Arctic Wolves trying to claim the last spot.

The playoffs being the first week of April, plenty of time to build up the usual spring rust, and transport plenty of Summit beer to BIG.