Our second playdown game was nothing short of our usual adventure. We seemed to control the play for great periods but we didn't get any chances on net.
I am not even going to mention the officiating because that can too easily become an excuse. There has to be some parallel to the fact that we have not won a game all season in this rink.
I would say overall the effort was there, it just seemed to be misplaced or misdirected most of the time. The flow of the game was quite good for the first period and although we had very few chances to generate offense we seemed to be matching them stride for stride.
The hardest and most frustrating thing in this game is the inability at times to make an impact. No matter how hard you try or what you do, you just end up feeling frustrated. This usually leads to the parade to the box.
I wouldn't say it was actually a "parade" but we took several ill-advised penalties in a row. For the record, all the opponent's goals came on the power play, so there is a lesson to be learned from this set back.
We have to regroup and find our center of gravity once again to move forward. I do not, by any stretch of the imagination feel that this will mean the end for us, it just simply means we will have to work harder to break through to the net.
We have to concentrate more on finding each other when we are open and most importantly we have to fight through to get shots on the net and test the goalies. Without question, using this tactic means we have to have a player(s) driving the net without the puck and occupying the goalie's attention even for a split second.
The greatest challenge facing the team and it's parts is to find the passion we had recently and to work as hard in games as we do in practice, to be even more specific... put into practice WHAT we work on - execute the game plan during the game!
Everyone must find their role and execute to the best of their ability.
I have a great deal of confidence if we do that, we will be fine. We just cannot take ANYTHING for granted.
------------------
As an aside, a LUDICROUS situation was corrected today, and two teams who had previously been told to forget a preliminary qualifying game, will now play for the right to move on. The game is set for March 1st and I sincerely wish both teams the best of luck.
I would also like to congratulate the LLFHL for never letting this issue die and for eventually shedding some much needed light and reason to what would have been one more sad story about minor hockey in Southern Ontario.
It's gratifying to see things work out for the better, it happens so infrequently.
---------------------
More on our march to MISSION 2K8 as it evolves.
Next Game - February 27 - 8:30 PM @ Orangville
No comments:
Post a Comment