Mar 10, 2012; Vancouver, British Columbia, CANADA; Montreal Canadiens forward Aaron Palushaj (60) during the first period against the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena. Mandatory Credit: Anne-Marie Sorvin-US PRESSWIRE
Last night’s live blog seemed to go alright so we’ll try this again.
Period One
-Surprised to see Mayer in net, I thought we’d see Desjardins back to back now that they have him in the lineup.
– Marlies with a solid chance in the first minute of play.
– Marlies with a lineup shuffle,
Kadri-Aucion-Komarov
Ross-Colborne-Deschamps
Hamilton-McKegg-Scott
D’Amigo-Acton-Ryan
Gardiner-Kostka
Fraser-Blacker
Ranger-Holzer
They have no ECHL team and thus a huge bench, plus a lot of veteran AHL talent, giving Eakins the oppurtunity to do this kind of thing.
– There isn’t enough credit going to St Denis so far, solid top pairing all situations defender at this level.
-Sortini exists only to get the Bulldogs’ PK practice.
-Marlies score. Komarov is now their top goal scorer despite deciding to leave.
-Beaulieu apparently has an elbow injury keeping him from the lineup.
– Tinordi with a decent slap shot on net, probably needed to be lower and hit the pads if he wanted to create something with it.
-CHL line reunited midway in the 1st period.
– Quailer with Bulldog’s best chance, misses the net.
– Tinordi and Stejskal chase hits instead of playing positionally and the the Marlies take advantage with a goal.
– A few seconds later, Mayer passes it right to Deschamps who puts it in the empty net.
-Late Marlies PP, Gardiner too good to be in AHL.
– Tough luck Tinordi, powerplay goal against goes in off his skate.
Period Two
-Mayer still in net after a tough first period.
-Holland-Blunden-Gallagher as a line? OK…
– Toronto dominating the shot clock, 14-3 in the second period.
– Dumont, the little ball of hate, hits Acton. Scrum ensues. Acton faces off against Nash and they fight. Nash schools him with left handed punches.
Brendan Nash, far more effective as an enforcer than Sortini.
– Toronto PP off the Dumont hit. Behind the play Tinordi uses his giant wingspan to push two Marlies into the boards.
– Same play, Blunden draws an equalising penalty by driving hard to the net.
– Encouraging sign for Avtsin from the coaching staff, he and Nattinen get to play 4 on 4 together.
– He manages to screw up a perfect 2 on 1 chance by being too patient though.
– Tinordi is trying out his point shot a lot more often than tonight than he has before.
-Embarassing PP shift for Morgan Ellis, interferes with his teammate, knocking him over, then turning over the puck.
– Corbin and the 4th line against AHL super star Aucoin. Predicable goal against results.
– Sortini is terrible. Completely useless.
– Speaking of which he takes offense to a leaping hit by Ryan on St. Denis. Drags him to the ice and repeatedly punches him when he’s down. Results in a 7 minute powerplay for Toronto and Sortini tossed from the game.
– At least Hamilton’s penalty kill is worth watching.
Period Three
– Repeat of the 2nd goal on the other end of the ice, Scrivens feeds Palushaj with a perfect shorthanded chance that he has no problem converting on for his 5th on the year. First SH goal on the year for Hamilton.
– Marlies get it back though. Kadri feeds Kostka from behind the net who scores with a snap shot.
– So Sortini’s penalties didn’t end up hurting the Bulldogs any.
– Gallagher keeps up with his favourite pass-time, pissing off goalies. He takes a shot from the slot in a cycle play and then charges the net, running right into Scrivens. Scrivens loses it, grabs Gallagher, holds him down and won’t let go. This sets off a scrum that Mayer tries to join from across the ice. Ranger comically grabs Gallagher’s legs and drags him while Scrivens holds him down. End result minor penalty to Ranger. Penalties to both goaltenders cancel out.
– Power play leads nowhere for Dogs.
– Dumont easily beats Colborne, who has almost a foot of height on him, in a fight.
-Hamilton has an embarassing 5 on 3 powerplay. No shots, no significant chances and frequently intercepting passes.
– Boyce apparently got a penalty for tripping himself. Weird phantom call.
– Not having Beaulieu has managed to make the Dogs’ powerplay even less effective.
– Palushaj gets a game misconduct for arguing with refs.
– Bournival and Gallagher aren’t ones to quit even down by 5 late. Solid efforts.
– Blunden can’t convert on a great chance on a sprawling Scrivens.
– Bulldogs really only had a terrible 1st period, game pretty even in 2nd and 3rd. Some of that might be score effects.
-Dogs get a PP goal but it gets called off for interference by Gallagher.
– Over 90 penalty minutes handed out tonight.
– Make that 121 minutes by the end. That’s more than two hours or two games.
I’m signing off, entertaining loss. Despite the score sheet I’m not sad that I watched.