This is a big test for the Tigers. Everett by far is the best defensive team in the league.
Pre-Game
This game is essentially offense vs defensive, who will win?
Kristians Rubins
The Tigers will be without one of their best defenceman in Kristians Rubins as he has suffered an "upper body" injury. They list Rubins out for 2-4 weeks. So it appears likely that the Tigers won't get him back until after the world juniors, as he is likely to suit up for his home country Latvia.
First Period
Everett gets a chance right off the hop. I think it startled everyone. Even Schneider stumbled, but luckily the puck skittered off the Everett players stick and it didn't result in a shot.
A lot of quick fast action. I don't think their was a whistle until 6 minutes had passed. The quick action definitely favors the Tigers, as Everett plays more of a defensive style. They really look to find an open man and then stick to him. So Far the Tigers have managed to come into the zone with speed and break that up a little.
Tigers Strike First
Both the Tigers and Everett received penalties 14 seconds apart. During the 4 on 4 Steven Owre with a burst of speed gathers the puck behind the net. 2 Silvertip players converged in front of the net, but Owre used them as a screen and put a goal top shelf far side. 1-0 Tigers
Prime Chances: 6-4 Tigers
The chances were relatively close. Everett had a partial breakaway and a full 2 minute powerplay, Everett also hit a post after a failed wrap-around. Schneider made the saves he needed to and he was tested a few times.
The Tigers were buzzing in the Everett zone for the last few minutes of play. However the Tigers will start the 2nd down a man. Brad Forrest whacked a puck that was standing on edge and it vaulted into the crowd. So far the game is pretty close. The announcers were commenting that Everett was running around a little and needed to tighten up more defensively. The Tigers have a small edge in play, but lets see what the 2nd period brings.
Note: The Tigers broke Carter Hart's shutout streak. He had 3 straight shutouts
2nd Period
Ug, The Tiger worst period of the Season by far. Everett exposed the Tigers defensively and took advantage of the Tigers frustrations.
Everett starts off with some momentum from their PP. They almost score a goal after a weak shot squeaks though Schneider's legs.
Everett Scores
Tigers turned the puck over in the neutral zone to the Silvertips. It was a 3 on 3 on the way back, but the Tigers defenceman were deep in their zone. It allowed Patrick Bajkov to walk in and wrip a shot from the top of the circle. It beat Schneider high glove side. 1-1 TIE
Everett Takes the Lead
2 Tigers and 1 Everett player were fighting for control of the puck in the corner. Despite advantages in numbers Patrick Bajkov walked out into the top of the circle and fired a shot on net. Max Gerlach managed a chop to the stick, but Schneider wasn't able to close his five-hole and Bajkov would get his 2nd of the game.
2-1 Everett Lead
Everett takes a 3-1 Lead
Right off the faceoff the tips pass back to the point. None other than Patrick Bajkov walks in and slaps a shot high glove side, with Schneider screened. 3-1 Everett Bajkov with the Natural Hat-Trick
Tigers Get Frustrated
Chad Butcher took a high hit in the corner and that was enough to set Fischer Off. He came in, and a big scrum developed. During the scrum Quenneville pulled an Everett player out of the scrum and Fischer walked by and sucker punched Matt Fonteyne in the head.
Fischer received a fighting major and game misconduct. Fischer might also face disciplinary action from the league. Silvertips receive a 3 minute powerplay.
Everett Takes a 4-1 Lead
Soon after Shaw took a slashing penalty and that results in a 5 on 3.
Kevin Davis from the point walked to the middle of the ice and blasted one high glove side. 4-1 Tips
Prime Chances: 7-11 Everett
The only chance the Tigers had was a short-handed rush by Mark Rassall. Everett owned the 2nd period, as the Tigers struggled to get out of their end.
Ugly ugly period.
3rd Period
Everett gets the first chance, but after that the Tigers start getting some momentum.
Tigers Score
Tigers with a few good chances, but it's Brad Forrest taking a wrist shot right off the faceoff that beats Carter Hart. 4-2 Everett
7-12 everett
One Goal Deficit
Matt Bradley fed a cross ice pass to John Dahlstrom who managed to get a one-timer off despite an everett player trying to check him. the shot beat Hart low Blocker side. 4-3 Everett
Tigers with a powerplay, but Everett killed it off pretty effectively.Tigers didn't get a shot and spent most of the PP going up and down the ice.
That's the Game
Everett end up clinging and winning this one 4-3
The Tigers closed the gap in prime chances. Everett only had 1 off the start, and the rest of the period has been all tigers.
Total Prime Chances: 12-13 Everett.
Final Score: 4-3 Everett
Summary
The Tigers won 2 of 3 periods, but their disastrous 2nd period lost them the game. It was reminiscent of last years blunders. A positive to take out of this is that they managed to claw their way back to within a goal.
The Tigers 10 game winning streak is over, so it's time to start a new one.
Next Up: Seattle on Saturday. It could be likely that they play without Zach Fischer who sucker punched an everett player and received a game misconduct.
19 comments:
I would suspect Zach will receive near the same punishment that Sam Roupp from Pg received when the Tigers played the Cougars. That would be somewhere around the 5-10 game suspension.
Such a dumb thing to do. He is valuable to the team and a very disappointing act. It is dirty and deserves 5-10 games.
I changed my mind a bit after watching the replay a few times.
When I first saw the replay I thought Fischer just came out and punched a random player, it looked bad. I was thinking he deserved 10-12. But I slowed the video down and watched it a few times and changed my mind.
Fischer came to the aid of Butcher who got hit and elbowed in the head. I applaud Fischer for stepping in. However the WHL would see that as the "3rd guy in" so that is a negative in their view.
#17 pretty much ganged in on a triple team on fischer. He dropped his stick and had him headlocked in the scrum.
That prompted quenneville to yank #17 out of the pile, As soon as the 3 on 1 against Fischer turned into a 2 on 1, #17 for everett went docile, and put his guard down.
Fischer was still grasping at him, let him go for half a second while he skated outside the scrum and threw a punch.
With the scrum it's really difficult to see what happened and it looks like fischer gets out of the scrum and punches a random guy, but that doesn't tell the story.
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What Fischer did wasn't right, however I don't like players joining a scrum and then playing innocent when it doesn't go their way either.
It will be interesting to see what the WHL decides, Ruopp got 8 games, but he was also a repeat offender, and it was at the conclusion of a game, and Owre wanted no part of a fight.
Fischer did get involved with a player who joined the scrum, but pulled away, it wasn't at the end of the game, but he was also a 3rd guy in.
I think he could see a similar 8 game punishment, perhaps a little lower like 6-7.
However I think the whl could just as easily make Fischer an example and hand him 10-12 games because he was the 3rd guy in and threw a suckerpunch.
Tough one to call
Just watching period 1 in Portland - and as the second goal goes in (just scored third!) I'm less than impressed with the defense... Don't like to single out players BUT I've been watching Quenneville (who scored as I'm writing) for the last five games or so and he's a major liability on defense. Players simply skate around him - and he usually lacks the size or desire to be a physical presence... His offense, IMO, simply balances (or comes close) the times opposing teams walk around him. That said, I didn't check his +/- so I could be way off... But as a draft pick, I think name recognition has been his best friend. Just coughed up puck - but Schneid's made up for it... That's today's rant. 3-2 now so hope springs eternal...
Anon 6:42 you are bang on although he's been a liability back there since day one. Small guys need to be great skaters (see Kris Russell), in Quennvilles case that's his weakest attribute. His lateral movement is terrible so guys that attack him with speed have a lot of success. He was a -5 last night and he's been on for three against tonight.
The Tigers met some decent hockey teams this weekend. The one thing that stood out for me in a bad way was their defensive coverage.
The forwards were running around and clumped up. They didn't know where to go, or how to recover when a defensive assignment was missed.
They have some work to do. That was no where near the level they need to be at if they want to be a whl contender.
The good thing is that they have a lot of time to work out these kinks.
Don't think it's time to hit the panic button but they need to nip this in the bud quickly before it snowballs. I also think that their schedule is finally starting to catch up with them. Three home games since October 29th with a trip to Edmonton and through BC. Home for a game and then the East trip and the out to the US division. Add to that day trips to Red Deer and Kootenay it adds up to over 10000 Km's logged in the the last month and a bit.
Five games for Fischer.
Tigers/Seattle also fined 250.00 each for warmup violations from the weekend.
Fischer has served 2.
He'll miss Red Deer, Lethbridge, Calgary
Back in the lineup next Tuesday against Kelowna.
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Dahlstrom has made Swedens' world junior selection camp. Not sure about is expected departure date for that yet.
Nothing yet about latvia and Rubins...
Tourney is in ontario/quebec this year
Rubins has been invited to his country's selection camp.
Not to sound like Capitan Obvious, they need to really snap out of this 5 game losing streak.
Real good first two periods and a very sloppy third. Looked like they were thinking about the losing streak and playing not to lose. Totally got away from the way they played in the first and second.
As much as I rag on #19 for his defensive play, need to give him props for his offensive abilities. He made some great passes last night, especially the one to set up Butcher's second period goal. That was a beauty.
Speaking of Butcher, didn't like the play he made when Calgary had their goalie pulled and he tried to stick handle around a guy instead of just chipping it out of the zone. Lost the puck and fortunately Schneider made a big save or it would have been nail biting time.
Not sure what Barry Prins is watching when he's at the games. In my view Mason Shaw was clearly the best player on the ice last night and he didn't get a star. Thought Ryan Jevne played very well also.
What are the chances that posters can initiate a topic. The board mgrs new topics are very good but very infrequent. The way it is now the board doesn't attract a lot of posts ot topics. Doubt if it is higher than one a day after a new topic is started by board owner and it would be much easier if fans could initiate topics. If people get ignorant in their topics or comments then the board owner could delete but the way it is now we have no idea what is happening unless we scroll through everything.
@sammy12, he does it as a hobby. I'm sure he's busy and has a day job like most of us. One should appreciate what he has created thus far. Maybe check out other WHL forums, because that sounds more like what you want..
Well I appreciate the 'very good' comment sammy!
anon above is right. I do this as a hobby, and used to have more time to write posts. I didn't really intend this to become a message-board, but I greatly-enjoy reading comments. Even If I don't respond I usually see and think about all comments.
As for now their are the Tigers Facebook, twitter, Instagram, whl whiteboard where users can also talk about the Tigers.
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I didn't make it to the calgary game. I think the moment the Tigers offense stops
overpowering the opponent, they loose the edge in play as their defensive game isn't great. They have some great skaters, and good defenceman, but their play as a group is rather weak, more-so when their #1 Dman Rubins is out of the lineup.
I'd make a guess saying in the 3rd with the game in hand their "overpoweringness" stopped, and that led to a natural advantages in chances for calgary.
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Ryan Jevne is interesting. I've always liked his game and work ethic. He wins a lot of small battles. He is kinda quiet and flies under the rader, but has a powerful shot. He already has more points in half the time of last season, despite getting 4th line minutes.
I think next season he will be poised for a big points jump.
What a horrible defensive effort against the Rockets. I've noticed the team is average/below average without Rubins playing.
Defence wasn't great but Schneider really struggled tonight. He was fighting it from the opening whistle.
The Tiger's never win a game because of good goaltending. Seems like the boys need to put 5 in the net to have a shot at a win every night. Tigers should look to adding a goaltender or their hopes of a deep playoff run are over.
Playing in behind a weak defence in the WHL is suicide. Schneider is not the problem, believe me. I'm so tired of hearing from all these "goalie experts". With all the holes the Tigers have on the back end, no goalie would last.
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