2018 EASTERN CONFERENCE QUARTER FINAL #1

Bandits Blizzard

Brentwood Bandits vs. Hampton Blizzard

Game #1 Here we go!

43 seconds in and Pittsburgh boy Vincent Trocheck scores to give Hampton a very early 1-0 lead with assists by Forsberg and former Bandit Geno Malkin.

5 minutes later, Hampton adds another with Backlund scoring his 1st of the playoffs. 2-0 Hampton.

At around the 15 minute mark, Sidney Crosby scores his first of the playoffs on the PP from Guentzel and Kessel. 2-1 Hampton

On to the 2nd period. Guentzel pots his first to tie the game at 2.

Hampton scores 2 less than a minute apart 3/4 of the way through the 2nd. Point and Rantanen make it a commanding 4-2 Hampton lead very quickly.

But this is the playoffs… right?

4 and a half minutes later Tavares pulls the Bandits within 1 as it’s now a 4-3 Hampton lead.

Trocheck closes out the second period as he scores his 2nd of the playoffs and the game assisted by two former Bandits in Ekman-Larsson (1) and Malkin (2).

It’s now 5-3 Hampton leads. Can the Bandits come back?

We are halfway through the 3rd period and despite the Bandits DOMINATING the scoring chances, shots, and time of possession for a majority of the game, Hampton still leads 5-3.

That is until Torey Krug scores to close the gape to one goal, 5-4 Hampton lead with under 0 minutes to play.

The Bandits throw everything they have, and then some, at Price to the tune of 51 SOG to Hampton’s 27… but it’s not enough as pulling the goalie doesn’t work and Hampton pulls an upset in the opening frame of the series winning by a score of 5-4.

Story of this game (and maybe the next?) is all about deflection goals and hitting the post!

Nik will agree. Brentwood hit the post as many times as Ike hit Tina… but it wasn’t enough.

On to the next one! 

Hampton 5, Brentwood 4

Game #2 The Bandits hope to get back to their game, which is outscoring the opponent and winning… dammit. 😉

18 seconds in Sid the Kid scores his second of the playoffs from Krug (1) and Kessel (4? wow) to jump to an early 1-0 lead for the Bandits!

That’s all the scoring we get in the period as Brentwood’s defense seems to have woken up and played the game they played for MOST of the season. And Gibson looks better than the 5 goals he game up last game on 27 shots.

Into the 2nd period… Kessel scores his first of the playoffs, unassisted. 2-0 Bandits lead.

At 13:56 Jake the Snake Guentzel pots his 2nd of the playoffs. from Crosby (2) and Kessel (5?!). 3-0 Bandits lead.

The Bandits defense and Gibson continue to keep Hampton off-balance.

Into the 3rd period. Bandits lead 3-0.

7:27 “Nion” Dion Phaneuf scores his 1st of the Spring assisted by Crosby (3) and Guentzel (3). 4-0 Bandits lead.

41 seconds later Trocheck (the Bandit Killer) scores his 3rd of the season to finally get Hampton the scoreboard. 4-1 Bandits.

Bandits Krug takes an ill-advised penalty at 11:01. While they are up by 3, the Bandits need to kill this penalty to not allow a run from Hampton.

At 11:45 Hampton is caught being too aggressive on the Power Play and give up a breakaway to Vermette… he shoots… he scores! Bandits lead 5-1.

Hampton would pull the goalie with over 2 minutes left and they would get some great scoring chances… but Gibson stood tall as the buzzer sounded on the Bandits Game 2 win.

Brentwood 5, Hampton 1

  Bandits split at home against a tough Hampton team.

“We really love how we played offensively in both games. After the bad first game by Gibson and the defense, it was nice to see them bounce back like they did in Game 2. The key to success in the playoffs is to adjust when needed.

Let’s move this series Northeast into the great nation of Canada in New Brunswick and see how it goes. Thus far, we’ve seen more tip-in and deflection goals than we should have by now. Looking forward to playing in Hampton tomorrow night!

Game #3 The keys to success for Brentwood would continue to be their smothering offense and ability to pelt the Hampton netminder until he cracked like a hard-boiled egg as in Game 2. Sorely over-matched Hampton had to be opportunistic and keep up with the deflections and make their goal posts bigger.
Game 3 followed the script of the first two games pretty closely with Brentwood dominating (hogging) control of the play and outshooting Hampton 18-6 in the opening period.
D-bag Phil Kessel got Brentwood the lead they wanted when he fired home a feed from Torey Krug and Kidney Crosby at 4:50on the power play with Shayne Gostisbehere off for hooking.
Following the secret of success – opportunism – Oliver Ekman-Larsson pinched in on the power play and rifled a wrist shot past Brentwood keeper John Gibson on Hampton’s power play with Madman Dion Phaneuf off for cross-checking to even things up at 1-1 just shy of the 10-minute mark.
The first period mania was not done yet though. Hampton’s Christian Dvorak was sent off for roughing at 15:42 and it triggered a Brentwood shot frenzy with Price having to make no less than seven saves in the two minute man-advantage. Penalty served and with coach Scotty Bowman screaming those inspirational words “You’re the worst player on the team – get over to the bench so we can sub you off”, Dvorak jumped out of the penalty box and into the thick of the play, took a feed from Evgeni Malkin and wristed the puck past Gibson and into the Brentwood net for an improbably 2-1 Hampton lead.
Hampton extended the lead to an even more improbable 3-1 with Frank Vatrano off for Brentwood for holding early in the 2nd period, when Anders Lee snapped a shot from the faceoff circle and into the Bandits’ net for his first tally of the playoffs. Gostisbehere and Andrej Sekera assisted on the play.
Hampton actually outshot Brentwood 12-8 in the 2nd period so it only stands to reason that Brentwood would turn around and score twice in the remainder of the period to send things into the 3rd period tied 3-3. Crosby (3) scored at 6:50 with Niederreiter and Bugnuts Kessel drawing assists and then a pretty stinking good (and old) hockey player named Patrick Marleau found the twine with only 22 seconds left in the period with David Backes and Ron Hainsey getting the helpers … a rare Brentwood goal where Crosby, Guentzel and Kessel were off ice.
It should be noted that Guentzel was way off ice – getting some much needed rest as a part-time player.
The third period was just plain exhausting. Brentwood fired 24 shots at the Hampton net (the Hosers responded with 11 the other way) as the Bandits fought to take home-ice advantage.
The period stayed scoreless with wave after wave of Bandits’ sniping at poor Mr. Price until at about the midway point of the period, Hampton again capitalized on a rare opportunity – a penalty to John Tavares for interference – with Malkin snapping a one-timer past Gibson to make it 4-3 Hampton. Mikko Rantanen and Filip Forsberg assisted on the goal … secretly I think the goal made Chris happy cuz after all Malkin is a Penguin (and personally I think the best one).
Well, all the goal did was piss the Bandits off and the shooting continued at poor beleagured Carey Price.
Finally at 17:23, Price cracked and Backes did the cracking thanks to a nice play involving Marleau and Phaneuf and it was 4-4.
Phaneuf was so pumped up that he gave Vincent Trocheck a noogie about 20 seconds later which earned him a trip to the box for “over-enthusiastic noogying”. Really? What a-hole ref calls a penalty in the playoffs in a tie game with less than 2 minutes in regulation time?
Anyway – opportunity knocked and Gostisbehere answered, firing a slapshot low past Gibson to give Hampton a 5-4 lead with 65 seconds to go. Sekera and Noogie-Victim Trocheck assisted on the goal – Hampton’s 4th power play goal of the game.
Hampton blueliner Erik Johnson who specializes in not scoring on goalies continued that trend by taking another opportunity – an empty Brentwood net – to slide home an insurance goal as Hampton dodged another 50+ bullets to win 6-4 and take a 2-1 edge in the series.
Not only did the f-ed up stats engine not select Carey Price and his 46 saves for any of the 3 game stars, but also showed Hampton as outchancing Brentwood 21-10. The game speed must have been set too high cuz clearly I missed it.
… and not a goal was scored on a deflection

Hampton 6, Brentwood 4

Game #4 Sometimes you’re trekking across a desert and a tuna falls on you. It happens. And this game was like that.
Weird and whacky #1 – Christian Dvorak picked up a loose puck and raced in on a breakaway 3 minutes into the game and promptly beat John Gibson to give Hampton a 1-0 lead (and almost as strangely Dvorak’s second goal of the playoffs where he had 7 goals all season).
Weird and wacky #2 -Hampton actually got the first shot of the game for the first time in the series and 27 seconds after Dvorak’s goal Anders Lee went top-shelf beating Gibson to make it 2-0 Hampton. Nick Jensen, who was dressed at the last minute after Erik Johnson was found in a hot tub, with three bottles of tequila and three Latvian stewardesses (geeze OK, flight attendants) moments before game time still apparently celebrating his empty netter from the night before, got the lone assist on that goal.
Weird and whacky #3 – 9 seconds after Peter Stastny’s pup Paul was sent off for tripping, Mikael Backlund, Vincent Trocheck and Nathan Beaulieu scampered across the Brentwood line and Flames’ forward Backlund fired the puck past Gibson to make it 3-0 early in the first period on a short-handed goal.
Weird and whacky #4 – John Gibson gets the hook at 4:59 of the first period giving way to Jaroslav Halak (a former Montreal goalie who was traded to St. Louis in order to make Carey Price the clear #1 Canadiens’ goalie). Gibson had faced four shots and allowed three goals.
Weird and whacky #5 – Trocheck connected on a couple of passes from Malkin and Gostisbehere to stun the Bandits, giving Hampton a 4-0 lead with less than 10 minutes gone in the 1st period. It was Trocheck’s 4th of the series.
No more goal scoring in the period, but of course Brentwood outshot Hampton 14-10.
Weird and whacky #6 – Nathan Beaulieu scored the only goal of the 2nd period when the Hampton velocity challenged blueliner flew in on a breakaway, beating Halak low stick side to make it 5-0. A breakaway for Beaulieu can only mean that Erik Johnson’s hot tubbing must have attacted all the rest of the skaters off the ice just before the breakaway as that would be the only way no one could have caught Beaulieu.
Not-so-weird nor whacky #1 – Brentwood had finally had enough at the start of the 3rd period and two minutes in a very no longer resting Jake Guentzel raced in and beat Carey Price with a slapshot to make it 5-1.
Not-so-weird nor whacky #2 – the Brentwood waves of shooters continued their onslaught on Carey Price firing 19 shots (compared to Hampton’s five) in the period. Ron Hainsey’s point shot from passes from Antoine VErmette and Mike Cammalleri beat the shell-shocked Hampton netminder to make it 5-2 at 6:19.
Not-so-weird nor whacky #3 – uh oh.
Not-so-weird nor whacky #4 -Tavares (not the pop singers from the 70s) gets his 2nd of the playoffs on the power play at 11:33 with Colton Sissons off for elbowing to shrink the Hampton lead to 5-3. Forbort and Niederreiter drew assists.
Not-so-weird nor whacky #5 – did I say uh-oh yet?
Weird and Whacky #7 (resuming our regularly scheduled programming) – Hampton forward Brayden Point gets the box for two minutes (or less) for elbowing Sidney Crosby. A minute and a half into the power play Trocheck breaks up a passing play and races in on Halak to score and make it 6-3. Huh? No … really.
Weird and Whacky #8 – with 24 seconds left, Trocheck takes a feed from Malkin and banks it into the Brentwood net to complete the hat trick, give him six goals in the first four games, and give Hampton a ridiculous 7-3 win.
Brentwood only outshot Hampton by a manageable 39-25 margin but Hampton once again out-chanced the Bandits 17-12 and outhit the Bandits 42-20 (I think the most hits I’ve seen all season in a game by one team … why the heck were we so angry?) That lead to 8 Brentwood power plays with them scoring once. Sissons led the angry mob with six hits, resident angry Swede Filip Forsberg went scoreless in the game but racked up five hits with Trocheck, Backlund anf happy just to be alive defencemen Jensen getting four each.
Again, Backlund’s lone goal gives him the 3rd star of the game while Price’s 36 saves gets him honorable mention.
I guess this is what happens when you let frickin’ Boston Bruins’ fans program the game software. 

Minneapolis 7, Alamo 3

  It’s hard to claim the better team is leading the series 3-1, but certainly the luckier one is … back to Brentwood we go to face the angry unwashed masses.    The quarter final matchup between the Bandits and the Hampton Blizzard swings back to Brentwood with the home team hungry to make up ground after falling behind 3-1 in the series.
Game #5 The question of the day on the minds of the Bandits’ faithful was whether their team could shake off the curse that seemed to be following their snakebit snipers and for John Tavares, Signourney Weaver Crosby and Jake (The Pretzel) Guentzel to get back to their old scoring ways.

Hampton was just looking to survive and continue to keep their buttcheeks clenched together for fear that the horseshoe might fall out. Carey Price hoped the combination of 5-foot wide goalie pads and an extra 206 coats of paint on the goal post might help out … if only a little.

The first period was pretty tentative with lots of swishing around with shots but very few real chances until former 1st round pick Andre Burakovsky sneaked in to take a pass from Paul Stastny in close and then fire it past John Gibson for a mid-period 1-0 Hampton lead.

Not a heckuva lot else happened in the opening period swapping impotent power plays but otherwise just circling each other waiting for a chance to move in for a punch. Well, other than Burakovsky’s sneaky little shit like goal there wasn’t much punching going on. Brentwood (of course) outshot Hampton 13-10, but at least this period was kind of close.

The 2nd period was more of the same as far as the tone of the play … Hampton coach Scotty Bowman spent much of the period just watching Brentwood outplay the Blizzard but just couldn’t find the net very often and when they did there was Carey Price and his Samsonite-sized pads in the way. Brentwood stuttered through two power plays and Hampton one without much going on. Brentwood’s shooters did silence the crowd three times in the period with the loud ringing of vulcanized rubber on metal when the snipers beat Price but not good ol’ Pennsylvania steel.

Game 5 was the game that Paul Stastny’s line finally reared its head. Inserted pretty much exclusively for the 3rd line’s faceoff and defensive zone management skills, the line came through for the second time in the contest when Stastny zipped a pass from Burakovsky low, under and through Gibson to make it 2-0 Hampton at 11:21 of the period.

Right winger Mikko (el Sneako) Rantanen drifted into the slow with about 2 minutes to go in the period and one-timed a pass from Anders Lee up and over the glove of the Brentwood netminder, stunning the crowd as their facing elimination their team was down 3-0 with a little over one period to go.

Brentwood had the puck whizzing around Price like a swarm of bees for much of the period, but the headcase netminder was equal to the task applying a combination of uncanny intuition as to where the puck was going and 90% shithouse luck. (FYI, I’ll take luck over skill any day – right Doug Flutie???).

Fortunately/unfortunately that luck continued into the last minute of play when the home team had all but given up Patrick Marleau rifled a shit past Price to make it 3-1. Sadly,only 26 remained on the clock.

Brentwood had a few chances to draw closer in the final seconds but in the end they were no match for the Price Club’s luck and the buzzer echoed in the cavernous silence of the Bandits Den as their team’s season came to an ignominious close at the hands of lesser men by a score of 3-1. 

Hampton 3, Brentwood 1

Series Summary:  Hampton advances to face Columbus in a match featuring two teams picked by Vegas betters as longshots to reach the conference final. Columbus corralled the mighty Clearfield Bison in four straight games while Hampton dodged bullet after bullet to take the series from Brentwood 4-1.

… Chris and I played our series live using Team Viewer over three evenings and I have to say playing live is the way to go and the software was super easy and free to use. My condolences go out to Chris not for losing our series (amen to luck) but for playing the final game of the series while the Pens were falling 4-1 to the Flyers in real life.

Congrats to Chris for a great season and for building such a good team and most importantly combining with his brother John to make me laugh my guts out during the pre-season auction two years in a row.