SKATER & GOALIE OF THE WEEK #3

The first period saw Saskatoon come out with a small edge in shots (12-10) but Hardy Astrom was pretty dismal in the Underground nets giving up three goals to the Cyclone shooters while Reggie Lemelin kept Chicago off the board.

Keith Acton got the Cyclone on the board first with a deflection of Rick Vaive’s slapshot, but what hurt the Underground more than that was Peter Stastny limping off the ice with an ankle injury with only five minutes gone in the game.

Then with Stefan Persson off on a high-sticking double minor (the game was delayed a few minutes as Doug Risebrough had to find his teeth), Marc Tardif took a feed from Dino Ciccarelli in the corner and beat Astrom stick side low to make it 2-0.

Saskatoon closed off the first period scoring when right off the faceoff deep in the Chicago end Merlin Malinowski drew the puck back to Tardif who shuffled it back to the point where Kevin Lowe was waiting to drive the puck through Astrom’s legs and make it 3-0.

Chicago didn’t waste much time with its rebuttle in the 2nd. Mike Bossy waited all of 25 seconds to rifle Mike Eaves’ pass to the top of the faceoff circle and through Lemelin and into the Saskatoon net to cut the lead to two.

The Underground buzzed all around the net on power play opportunities but the Cyclone held them off only to have Eaves get involved in the action again with a pass from behind the net out front to Butch Goring who slapped it past Lemelin and cut the lead to one.

Malinowski gave the Cyclone some breathing room with Glenn Wesley off serving a penalty, the rookie centre deflected Lowe’s point shot up and over Astrom’s pads.

But Chicago was not going to go away…

Fricking Bob Dailey and his 50-pound skates pounced on the puck near the Chicago blueline after Ric Seiling smushed Lowe into the boards and the Sasquatch-like defender drove all the way down the ice and slammed the puck past Lemlin for a short-handed goal and make it a 4-3 game heading into the 3rd.

Chicago was grinding Saskatoon into a pulp along the boards and winning all the races to the puck in the third period, but high quality scoring chances were hard to come by until around the 10-minute mark when Denis Savard beat Lemelin cleanly with a wrist shot but nailed the crossbar head on and the puck bounced all the way back to centre ice.

With the Underground continuing to threaten Astrom became possessed by the spirit of Billy Smith and laid the lumber to Rick Vaive in the crease and got a minor penalty for roughing up the burly winger. On the ensuing power play with just under 6 minutes to go Gretzky’s shot from near the point took a crazy bounce off Jacques Richard’s stick and past Astrom to make it 5-3.

In kind of an asshole move with Chicago’s goalie pulled and a little over a minute left, Kent-Erik Andersson broke free on a breakaway and came in on the empty net all alone and tapped it in to make it 6-3.

Right off the next faceoff at centre ice Dan Labraaten slashed, held, pummelled and then tripped Andersson sending the Swede to the ice and giving the ref no choice but to call a penalty.

Gretzky snapped Richard’s pass into the slot past Astrom to make it 7-3 on the man advantage and that is how it ended.

Despite the score it was a very close game with Chicago and Saskatoon each getting 33 shots on goal. Power plays made a big difference with Chicago going 0/3 while Saskatoon was 4/7.

Stars:
1. SAS, Tardif (1G, 3 A)
2. SAS, Gretzky (1 G, 2 A)
3. SAS, Lowe (1 G, 1 A)

Smith, one of the top goalies in the game, was like a wall in the first period against the Cyclone shooters. Smith robbed Rick Vaive and Brent Ashton from in close in the first half of the period and then with Saskatoon on a 3-on-2, he did it again to Marc Tardif. Tardif’s shot bounced right back to the Saskatoon left winger, but he was poke checked by Ryan Walter who sent Yvon Lambert free to race in on Cyclone goalie Rogie Vachon. Vachon’s pad kicked out at the last minute deflecting the puck up and wide of the net, but Walter raced in and came away with it and tucked it between Rogie’s pad and the post on a nifty wraparound to make it 1-0 12 minutes into the game.

Smith continued to stone the Cyclone, but the opportunistic Saskatoon shooters jumped on a double-minor high-sticking penalty to Brad McCrimmon and they came back with a wraparound goal of their own courtesy of Rick Vaive with only 50 seconds left in the 1st. They’re cheap and pretty f-ugly but what the heck? The goal was also marked by Keith Acton apparently celebrating a little too much and got slammed headfirst into the boards for his efforts and had to leave the game.

The Ducks didn’t get their first shot of the 2nd period until over two minutes in when Nick Fotiu floated a shot towards up and apparently through Vachon from right around the blueline to make it 2-1 for the visitors. It was Lugnut’s 1st goal of the season.

Kent-Erik Andersson tied it up at 9:49 of the period when Brent Ashton crushed John Barrett along the boards freeing up the puck for the Swede and giving him a breakaway goal to tie things up 2-2.

The 2nd period was all New Castle otherwise though with them topping the Cyclone by a wide margin of 15-5 in shots.

Bobby Clarke and Chris Kotsopoulos christened the fresh 3rd period ice with their blood just 46 seconds in and got both teams going with some crazy end-to-end action.

Finally it was none other than Mr. Wayne Gretzky who woke up out of his two-period funk and one-timed a feed from Dave Taylor through Smith’s legs to make it 3-2 Saskatoon with 13 minutes to go.

Old man Clarke apparently still had something left in the tank when three minutes later he dashed in from the top of the faceoff circle and fired a wrist shot over Vachon’s glove to make it 3-3.

Gretzky gave the Cyclone back the lead with 4:30 to go when he snapped Taylor’s pass off Smith’s outstretched trapper and into the New Castle net.

Billy Smith never got the chance to get to the New Castle bench for the extra attacker. Just as Smith was making his way towards the bench Ducks’ forward Mike Allison exploited Vachon’s Achilles’ heel (and apparently its inability to stay snug against the post) as he took Rick Lanz’s missed shot and wrapped it around and into the net to tie it up with 1:19 left on the clock.

The two teams played the last 79 seconds tightly and didn’t register a shot as they both seemed content with the tie.

New Castle outshot Saskatoon 35-27 in the game.

Stars:
1. SAS, Gretzky (2 G)
2. NEW, Allison (1 G, 1 A)
3. SAS, Vaive (1 G)

Rangers 4 Saints 2

1-Trottier 2 goals, 1 assist
2-Shutt 1 goal, 1 assist
3-Schutt 1 goal

Saints 3 Foresters 2

Marlin Malinowski scored to break a 2-2 tie in the 3rd period and Saskatoon wins 3-2

Silk City scores 6 straight goals in the last 2 periods and routed the Owls 7-2. Kehoe and Bourne
scored 2 times each.

Sittler gets 2 helpers to add to his league leading points total.

This one was all Spirit as they are up 2-0 as the 2nd winds down, but Bulley (2) bullies his way onto the scoresheet to make it 2-1 Spirit.

Head to the 3rd where Hagman (1) gets his 1st on the campaign to give the Spirit a 3-1 lead.

With 2 minutes left (1:59 to be exact), Jim Fox (5) makes it a game as it’s 3-2.

With 7 seconds left, Jarvis (2) rips the heart out of the Pittsburgh crowd as the games ends in a tie 3-3.