Friday, February 3, 2012

Tigers Defeat Raiders 3-2

Bunz Gets Record
Forgot to mention this yesterday but with the Win over P.A Tyler Bunz becomes the Tiger's all-time regular season wins leader. Bunz was wearing some new pads for the game.


I thought the game was a real battle for both teams. The Tigers played hard for 60 minutes, and the raiders also came to play. I thought The reffing favored the Tigers as they got away with a couple borderline calls and called the Raiders on a few borderline calls.

Bunz looked pretty sharp tonight stopping 26 of 28 shots for the win.

First Period
NO goals. Both teams came out with a high tempo game. I thought the Tigers weathered the P.A game and got a bunch of scoring chances early.

Second Period
The Raiders get on the board first. Off the Faceoff the puck came out to Raiders Defenceman Harrison Ruopp...Ruopp had some time and space to get a good shot off. It might have been deflected, there was traffic in front and it beat Bunz (looked like blocker side) 1-0 Raiders

Off the cycle Scott mckay dropped a puck along the boards for Jayden Heart. Hart had a tiny bit of room and walked off the halfwall and fired a shot over the shoulder of Raiders Goaltender Cole Holowenko. 1-1 TIE

The raiders would take a tripping penalty late in the 2nd period

3rd Period
On the Powerplay some very quick movement from the Tigers. THey passed the puck down low to hunter shinaruk at the side of the net who did a 180 (in front of the net wrap around and scored past the outstretched pads of the raiders goaltender) 2-1 Tigers


The Tigers would strike again on the Powerplay. Hunter Shinkaruk helped create a turnover checking Tyler Yaworksi down low. Yaworksi accidentally backhanded the puck right out in front where Emerson Etem said thank you very much and shot the puck over Cole Holowenko's shoulder blocker side. 3-1 Tigers

The Raiders would respond on a powerplay of thier own. Boston Leier slewfooted a raider player along the halfwall and lost control of his stick as it struck a raider player in the face.

Mark Mcneil made a great Individual effort, as James Bettauer was a little too deep in his own end and made a mistake of skating forwards to meet Mcneil. Mcneil recognized this and cut to the middle. Bredo tried to put a stick on him and almost succeeded but Mcneil lmade a great play to cut in front of the net to take a shot and get his own rebound past Tyler Bunz outstretched pad. 3-2 Tigers

The game got a little chippy after that. Josh Morrisey took a run at hunter Shinkaruk and Alex Theriau said no you arn't allowed to do that. He dropped his gloves and the two almost immediately fell to the ice...the refs called it roughing.

A couple minutes later the Tigers were going to get a penalty and I dont think Patrik Parkkonen recognized this as he took a shot on net just as the ref blew the whistle. This created a scrum along the boards and Cole Grbavac and Harrison Ruopp ended up squaring off to fight.

THe fight was mostly grbavac as he threw a bunch of punches and dodged the couple that ruopp threw. Gravac landed a couple so I give the decision to Grbavac.

Thoughts
The Tigers played real well in the neutral zone and in the offensive zone. I think their neutral zone play limited the Raiders chances, however their defensive zone coverage still needs work(not neccessarily just the Dman, moreso the forwards). The Tigers played with a strong 60 minute effort that prevented a lot of chances, but against a top team they may have some work still to do.


I am happy with the Tigers effort tonight as the Raiders played pretty hard. The Tigers responded equally as hard, and Bunz looked really sharp.

One of my notes I took said Mckay, Hurley and Hart created some good offense...and ten minutes later hart scored a goal.

Matt Konan played inspired hockey. He was on his game defensively. Bettauer needs to step his defensive game up a notch. Also Spencer Jensen is impressing me a lot lately. He does a lot of the small things right...Its way to early but at this point I'd say he might be draft material next season...he shows some smarts and skill.

Alex Theriau had an up and down game he was undressed by P.A raider Anthony Bardaro but made up for it sticking up For Hunter Shnkaruk when he was crunched and challenged Antoine Corbin to a fight.



Reffing Controversy?
After the game Raiders GM Bruno Campese had some words for the officiating they have received recently. I thought in tonights game the Raiders seemed to get the short end of the stick on some calls. No doubt he will receive a call from the league, but after watching the game on the webcast at least for this game I can see why he was frustrated.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good effort by the Tigers, nice to see them respond to a couple tough games in the last week. Defence was better and I thought they appeared to stick to "the plan" a lot better! It looked like everyone was giving a 100% effort! Good job guys, keep it up!

longtimefan said...

"The raiders coaches mentioned that they wanted to play as much as they can in the Tigers D-zone." Is there a team out there that doesn't want to spend more time in the other teams zone. Not exactly a news flash from the Raider coaching staff.

TigerTurf said...

yea I know thats not exactly mind-breaking material and I could have worded that a lot better....but its not a secret that the Tigers defensive play is exploitable.

gonna edit that a little...hmmm nah still doesnt sound right just gonna delete it

TigerTurf said...

Those comments I took out also said the P.A coaches expected the Tigers to come out with a strong foresheck and when they couldnt penetrade they would fall back to a 1-2-2 attack.

...interstingly enough the TIgers started the Saskatoon game with a 1-2-2 forecheck...and it seemed to work well for them.