Monday Schlidaveur! Red vs Gold!

Schlitz (8) vs Cadavers (9)

Monday November 14

Canton 10:10pm

Suds 4

Cads 2

Last Monday night saw the assembled ‘davuers face off in the second intra-squad game of the season. This one had a nice angle right from the start. Management put out the request for guest captains/gms and Larry Bell stepped up to help. Larry and Jeff would have a playground-style pick ‘em over the phone on Friday afternoon.

Larry would captain the Cads and Jeff the Suds and both rosters filled up and both captains clearly had a philosophy in mind.

Larry would go with a heavy offensive look, snapping up multiple scoring leaders (Nelson, Baker) and this season’s rookie phenom Josh Bittker. Jeff would counter with most of the defensemen on the roster, well… most. Then to work around the possiblilty of needing Sully to play net, we made a trade and Eric Bauer would go over to Larry’s D lite Cads and Kevin Parker and Mitch Goldenberg would come back to bolster the Gold offense.

Here is your final rosters.

Cadavers

Randy Dudek in Net

D1: Valenti; iJosh

D2: George; Bauer

O1: Baker, Gorden, Gregson

O2: Larry, JoshB, Nelson and Mike Jasse

Schlitz

Sully in Net

D1: Campbell; DWH

D2: Marietta; Reynolds

O1: Daley, Parker, Elliot

O2: Matvey, Mitch, Doc Pounds, and Jeff rotated.

The game started quick for the Dead in Red. Larry’s offensive philosophy would show immediate results as Greggy would bury a close chance as the play went around the zone from Josh B and Jared Gorden. This was in the first two minutes and the Gold knew they would have to play a tight defensive style to keep a hold on the Red.(I thought the first goal was from Baker...)
But the Gold would counter no more than 2 minutes later when Jeff would keep the play in the zone and worked it to Matvey who did some nice work getting it to Scott Pounds who whipped a low shot from high in the circle that beat Randy, sneaking through the legs and into the net to tie the game.

Valenti would go for a trip at 10 minutes when he took Jeff down low in the Red zone. Scott would go for a trip of his own but there was no scoring on the penalties.

The teams would go back and forth at each other and really both goalies made some nice plays all game long, keeping things very tight. The first would end a 1-1 draw, but the Gold felt good about the gameplan.

The Red would find that their chances would start to dwindle in the second as the Gold D would smother everything that came over the blue line and the offense was counterpunching well, getting good chances. Mike Daley was doing his usual excellent job of pushing the play and being all over the place. His line with Elliot and Parker would get lots of excellent chances. Mike would get results with 3 minuets left in the 2^nd when he would wrist home an nice play from linemates Matt and Kevin. Suds 2, Cads 1 after 2.

The Red were starting to show some frustration at not being able to get things going but that wouldn’t last all night. With that kind of talent they were going to make something happen eventually. Jared Gorden would finish a hard work cycle from Nelson and Gregson and the game was tied at 2 with 10 minutes to play.

The Gold would do a nice job counterpunching though, and only a few minutes later Matt Elliot would feed Mike Daley who would fire a great pass to Jeff who was camped in front of Randy and Jeff would bang it home for the 3-2 lead.

Not long after that iJosh would go off for the Red after tripping Jeff (who was clearly enjoying playing forward). He would slide along the ice like a seal…mostly to have a rest not so much to embellish…

Mike Campbell would go for the Gold before penalty was up but there was no scoring on either.

This takes us down to the last 2 minutes. Gold up 1. Red desperate and surging, getting chances. Larry would get a break doing a great job with his legs to get ahead of the D, but Mike Daley would tackle him and he was awarded the dreaded penalty shot.
So Larry would have it in his hands to tie it up with 1:30 to play. The teams would rise and there was plenty shouted, both pro and against his chances. Larry would take the puck and work fast into the zone favoring the right side. His move was not his best (or fastest) but he made it, but Sully was there and came across the crease to swat away the backhand bid. Really a good try by both.

Later in the parking lot Larry went to Sully to get some shooter’s feedback and Sully told him he dropped the shoulder so he knew he was going backhand.

The game still had a minute and a half to go with both squads pressing hard. The Gold would get the sealer when Mark Reynolds would hold the play in the Red end and get the puck to Jeff who was again working the middle of the zone. Jeff would fling it at the net and Daley would burst into the crease area and would slam home the puck for the 4-2 lead with less than a minute to go.

That was how this one would end and the Gold locker-room discussed offering the Red squad another chance at the contest and since there was another daveur scheduled for the next Monday… it was a natural.

Before the rematch though…

Game Stars:

3^rd Star: Jeff Fosdick. 1 goal, 2 assists. Jeff has now played 3 games in a row at forward and is looking like he likes it. Hmmm…  maybe that’s some insight into his selection of a D-heavy roster.

2^nd Star: Sully in net for the Gold. Sully was pressed into service in the nets when management  was unable to book another keeper. He did a tremendous job, making great saves all night on a bunch of pretty darn good shooters.

1^st Star: Mike Daley. Doing huge amounts of work for the Gold. Two huge goals and an assist and once again about 100km skated. Great work.

So after a Tuesday morning email to Larry…. The rematch was set for the following Monday.