Hextall-riffic & Feeling Good

My theory of Limited Luck is holding up. All my teams lost tonight and I played really well (until I didn't -- more on that later).

But at least Brusty kept it interesting, making 40 saves and salvaging an OT point for the painfully inconsistent Baby Sens. Not only did he kick ass in goal, he gave the Wolfpack's Tim Kennedy some serious business for running one of the Sens into the boards behind his net.

Check out how delicious this is. When do goalies EVER stick up for teammates like this any more? Luckily only 2 min roughing penalty for it. Guess the refs felt it was a legit response. Good on 'em.



And I'm told the fans chanted his name after. Chanted his freaking name, y'all! FMD, that's awesome, and frankly, as it should be. I may have to shell out my $4 for the archive of this one.

My favorite quote from the night from the coach:

"It's a shame that he had to, that he was the one who had to realize something needed to be done," Kleinendorst said. "But it doesn't surprise me. I think he would have chased the guy down to the far blue line if he had to, but that's a good thing."

First time I watched it, I wondered how long he was going to end up chasing him. Wouldn't you love to be in Kennedy's head when he's spun around and face to face with GIANT ANGRY GOALIE? New breezers, please.

Beauty.

---------------

So, we tied 4-4 tonight and 3 of my 4 goals came in the third period. One of them, I'm okay with. I made the first stop and lost sight of it. Next thing I know, it's in the net. I don't even know what happened but I don't know what I should have done differently. I needed my defense to talk to me there. I thought I had it, for all I knew.

But I had two that went 5-hole on me, which is pretty unusual. But in both cases, they were shooting from 3-4 feet in front of me and I was trying to be patient because they were moving and I didn't want to go down too early and give them deke options (sometimes I forget it's novice league).

So, those were frustratingly soft. I guess I was lifting my stick. I need to put lead weights on my stick so it's too heavy to lift. Ha.

The last one is one I have tended to have problems with lately and I think I've figured it out. When I've got a shooter coming down the ice on my glove side and they carry the puck on their left, I'm not squaring to the puck. I'm drifting to the shooter's body and they're knocking it in just inside the far post every time. Those feel bad because they're easy easy stops if I'm where I should be.

However, I did have some awesome stops and my pads were my best friends tonight.

This doesn't happen to me much but I'm pretty sure the best kind of save is where the shooter is so convinced he scored, he actually starts to skate away. And then turns around and goes "AWW!" when he realizes the puck is still in play.

The coach on the other team (I call him Brent Burns because he looks like him and he makes everything look so easy, being so tall and rangey and handsy) picked up a rebound and thought he had himself an easy tap-in. But I somehow got my leg out in just the nick of time and kicked it out. He's already headed up ice and realizes, "No whistle?" Hahaha.

That was badass. I mean, I know I didn't beat anybody up or need the ref to restrain me (or, um, protect me? Haha... ;) and nobody chanted my name, but I did get some nice kudos from both teams after. Still felt pretty fuckin' good after those lousy outings last week.

Aeros at home tomorrow. Some other joker can stop the pucks for a day. :)