#3. Cody Haag ---- 3 goals in the Hounds 7-6 win over the Walkers last night.
#2. Joe Spencer --- 2 games in net, 2 wins. See write up in the blog for the rest.
#1. Bob Anderson ---- 2 goals in the last 30 seconds to lead the Colonials to a 9-8 win over the Yeti.
Interview with last nights #1 star:
Bob Anderson (Colonials)
1. 9-8 win over the Yeti last night. What can you say about the overall team effort in the win? It was a bit of a rollercoaster of a game for us. The first period was our best by far so far this season. If we played like that for 3 periods a game, we would be hard to beat. Unfortunately, we had some stretches where we forgot how to play defense, and ended up giving up a 3-goal lead and found ourselves trailing with a minute left to play. We bailed ourselves out by scoring 2 in the final minute though. So, in summary, it was up and down. We have reason for optimism though going forward!
2. A 7-4 lead turned into an 8-7 deficit. What do you think went wrong in that stretch?
Playing defense has to be a team wide commitment. Everyone has to be responsible and be in good position. It's all it takes is one person to get caught on the wrong side of the play and you're vulnerable. When we have bad stretches, I think it's because we get out of position. Not to mention, I have to give credit to the Yeti for their play. They pushed hard to get back into it and looked really strong for stretches. You simply can't give them room or they'll make you pay...especially Zach!
3. You scored twice with less than a minute to go. Was your main focus at that point to simply try to force overtime when you were trailing 8-7?
For sure! At that point in the game you are in desperation mode. The Yeti was trying to kill the clock along the wall. Kevin did a good job of digging around and poking it out. The ball found my stick and I just tried to turn into the middle and get a shot on net. We had some good traffic in front of Adam and the ball found its way through.
There was still about 30 seconds left in the game so my primary concern was getting to overtime so we would at least get a point. We had an offensive zone draw with about 15 seconds left and Kevin won the face-off back to me . Usually there isn't much of a lane to get a shot off, but he won it cleanly enough that I had time to get one through.
4. You reffed 3 games last night. Whats your overall observation with some of the other teams around the league right now?
I could give you something about every team, but I won't bore you. Two teams really stood out to me. The Mayhem have had a really strong start to the season and their new yellow shirts are sweet! I think they could compete against every team...except one.
The Knights are just an absolute juggernaut. I was thinking about this while watching them mercy-rule the Eagles...if the XHL were a draft league, how many of the players on the Knights would be 1st round picks? Perhaps more importantly, how many would make it out of the 2nd round? When you put all of that talent together, without any weaknesses, on a team that knows how to play together, it's deadly. It's a bad sign for the league when a game that should have been competitive ends up ending two minutes into the third period by way of a 12-0 score. It feels like the rest of us are playing for 2nd place. I have to question if the championship is really in question. Perhaps the only question to answer is will they lose a game?
5. 4 teams left. Who raises the Lombardi?
Good question! You'll have to tune into Under Review on 99.7 FM on Wednesday evenings or download the podcasts by searching Connect FM on Thursdays to get all of my bad takes.
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