Back in the teeth

Well, let's see, it was a fun night of hockey for everyone but the Aeros, who lost 3-2 to Rockford. This continues Khudobin's 10ish game losing streak, though I'm told that none of the 3 goals were bad ones. A couple of of defensive lapses and one just heavy traffic and some friendly interference.

One thing that stood out to me was during the first intermission, KC was talking to Joe about how the number of defensive penalities the team is getting indicates that the team isn't possessing the puck enough. They need to control the puck more and win battles for the puck more, etc.

You know what's great for helping that? A goalie who plays the puck like a third defenseman and get the puck back in his team's control closer to their offensive zone.

But where can you get one of those? Hmm... let me think....



The Wild knocked out a big, decisive win against the Canucks, including chasing Luongo, which warms the cockles of my heart. It's not that I dislike Luongo... but he's one of the few goalies who I really don't mind seeing lose. Maybe it's because he's a Nuck and that team just grinds my gears. Or it could be the greasy mullet. Not sure.

And not only did they win on the scoreboard, there were numerous fights and John Scott's in particular was a monstrous beat down of Bolduc. Scotty used to kinda halfass his fights like he didn't want to hurt anybody, but I guess NHL money says, "If he dies, he dies." Rock on, Drago!

And if it's true what Boogaard told Russo about the Nucks coach telling his guys to go fight... man, that's... I dunno. That makes me squidgy. Bolduc got fed his own face and doesn't know which way is up now. It's just not cool.

Oh and, BTW, Latendresse Bitches! And also very relieved to see that Clutter seems to be okay. I don't trust the Wild medical staff re: concussions, but it sounds like Cal's being cautious. You'd have to be seriously concussed to not be able to look around you at the scrambled and re-scrambled brains in that room and not take ownership of your condition to some degree.

And finally, #(ahem)35 had a heck of a game for the Blades tonight. Had a shutout 58 minutes into the game and then one got past him.

Whoever said "shutout" needs to fess up and take your smack on the back of the head. Come on. You know who you are.

The shitty thing about watching online, even with a really spectacular feed like the Royals produce, is that generally you're following the puck by inference. Which is to say, you often only know where it is because of how players are moving and looking. So sometimes it's tough to tell what happened on a goal.

I'd guess by body language, it was deflected in or took a weird bounce, because Barry appeared to be well positioned for where the puck was at the last point I could actually see it. And then it was in.

Anyway, he stopped 20 of 21 in regulation and OT (perhaps the greater victory being that that's all the shots he saw), and then stopped all 7 shootout shooters. Thrilling!

Bonus was, of course, a big poke that honestly, the guy's head must have been up his ass because I don't know how he didn't see that coming. I even saw it coming and I'm fucking clueless.

Regardless, it worked. It was a fun shootout for a goalie lover, though to be truthful, these ECHL guys don't really seem to have much up their sleeves.

A couple went high glove and Barry Roy'd it up a little bit, which makes me laugh. Holding that glove up a couple of beats and then dropping it to the ice like, "Oh hey, you left this." I don't really know how that makes a shooter feel, but it can't be good because I know it makes goalies feel fucking great. Literally. KWIM? Yeah you doooooo....

My girl, Swamp Hockey has a great photoshop of Brusty the Wall here.

And also, um, I just have to get this off my chest: Matt Dalton is a weird lookin' goalie. Something about the way he skates and moves. Very stiff or something. *ahem* I'm totally NOT going to make the "normally I don't mind a stiff goalie" crack you were expecting. Oh wait....