Our second weekend playing this team turned out to be much more successful than we had earlier anticipated. In our previous contest, we won the first game 5-0, and then suffered an unprepared loss on Sunday 1-3. This weekend we were down a number of players, and coming back from a long absence and were hoping to have not lost a step.
Game 1
Saturday Jan 4 – 8:00pm – Factory – Won 14-2
Despite having only 13 skaters, we came out with a measured intensity, and kept the Bears on their heels for the remainder of the game. Our goal was to take short shifts, keep the game simple, and as always – forecheck aggressively. First period was solid; second period we relaxed and got a little selfish, and that allowed them to take more shots, but we adjusted for the third, and were able to get back to our game.
Game 2
Sunday, Jan 5 – 11:15am – Factory – Won 6-1
The Bears were motivated to play better, and came out much more aggressively. They managed to keep us scoreless for quite a while, and actually scored first. We were playing casually and didn’t really take the initiative for a while.
Once we got going, we still struggled with a few things:
- whiffed passes – this has to do with not bending the legs
- stuck rimming the puck around our defensive zone. We were hemmed in for two main reasons:
- Defense taking too long to make a decision about moving the puck
- Wings not getting the puck off the boards with control quickly
