rfleming's 2011-12 season

Rangers 6 - Capitals 7 WLT: 11-11-2

Not a good night for me. Got drug into a family crisis earlier in the day and was having a hard time focusing on the game. Top shelf was the place to go during this game. I feel like I am getting better with my recoveries though. I was angling my rebounds to the boards really well and then squaring up to the puck again quickly. I was also getting a lot of good practice with passes coming from behind the net into the slot followed by a quick shot. I was also having a hard time with breakaways. I faced about 10 or so clean breakaways and allowed goals on 4 of them. My other three goals was a shot from the face off dot that went off my glove and in. A shot from the point that a forward hanging out at the top of my crease deflected beautifully under my glove. Last but not least a shot along the ice that tipped off a skate and changed directions, when I tried to kick my leg out farther from my butterfly, my knee came off the ice and the puck went under my knee.

The shot that went under my knee had me laughing because before the faceoff that led to that shot, I was giving the ref a hard time about what I thought was a blown icing call. The puck was passed up the ice and a teammate was going to catch up to it, but a defender slowed him down instead of trying to reach the puck, and the puck made it to the goal line right before they did. After the goal I laughed and looked at the ref I was giving a hard time and said, "I guess that's what I get for talking s**t to the ref, huh?" He just looked at me and said, "Yep." This guy (I actually think he's the board president) has the personality of a... well, let's just say I don't see him smile a lot.

Down by 2 with about 4 minutes left in the third, the Capitals start a strategy that I've never seen, and quite frankly it pissed me off. They would bring the puck down into my corner, then dump it back to their end of the ice. No icing, nothing we could do about it. We fnially get a turnover and I go to the bench. We get one back with about a minute left, but the Capitals win the faceoff and start dumping the puck again. Never got the chance to get back to the bench.

Oh well, it was ice time, still had a ton of fun and got me away from my phone and family for two hours. A rough day in the crease still helps get through a rough day in life.

Originally Posted by rfleming

...Down by 2 with about 4 minutes left in the third, the Capitals start a strategy that I've never seen, and quite frankly it pissed me off. They would bring the puck down into my corner, then dump it back to their end of the ice. No icing, nothing we could do about it. We fnially get a turnover and I go to the bench...

As you know, no one sees this strategy in upper levels of hockey. Most of the time, the opposing team will dump deep in the their offensive zone and keep the other team from getting out. Reverse dumping is not a great idea to run down the clock, and don't advise your team to do it.

Where were their defensemen? Hanging in the neutral zone?

Originally Posted by caveman27

Where were their defensemen? Hanging in the neutral zone?

They looked like they were playing a 2-2-1 zone with one defenseman hanging out between center ice and their blue line. The strategy we usually see is just icing the puck because we play with a running clock, but we have 2 or 3 really good centers that win a ton of faceoffs against this team. It's just kind of a p***y move. Luckily we don't see it a lot.

Uh huh, I figured that. The wingers need to be observant of this. If he's laying that far back, it's not worth it to be defensive and hang out inside the blue line. It would be better to do circles (in motion is better than staying in one spot) in between the red line and your blue line. It would prevents this reverse dumping situation. If they don't see your forward hanging out there, then he could pick up the reverse dump for a breakaway. It also helps your side to headman to that forward if they get the puck. And actually, if your defenseman sees this (forward hanging outside the blue line), he needs to drop back. Its called cherry picking, at least from where I am from.

Yeah, cherry picking is about half of the breakaways I face. In the C league that I play in, less than a fifth of the guys/girls know proper positioning or how to properly set up plays. The B league is different, it was crazy to see actual plays and strategy happening in front of me when I subbed. Also, for some odd reason, most of the defensemen on my team are the poorest skaters on the team. Oh well though, I'm pretty used to it and we haven't scored less than five goals in our first four games so far in the winter half, so as long as we keep scoring like we do, I'm sure I'll get back into my groove, and we're still having a good time. Now if only our rink wasn't run by a church organization and allowed beers in the locker rooms !

"Now if only our rink wasn't run by a church organization and allowed beers in the locker room"

Thats your first mistake...

Rangers 6 - Redwings 1 WLT: 12-11-2

Two of my really good friends who got me playing roller hockey a few years ago used to be on the Rangers with me. They only play in the winter session, so we played on the same team for the first game of the winter session. They got traded to the Redwings after that first game. I call them up on Wednesday to make sure they're going to be at last nights game. We all get to the rink at separate times, and we have our "HEY! How's it going man?!?", "How you doing?!?" and go right into "Dude, I am going to stone wall you all night!" and "Whatever! I'll score on you more than I scored on your mom last night!" (Yes, the three of us are always throwing around your mom jokes). I was feeling really confident before last nights game because I know the moves and shots of Chris and Jake, so that's 2 less players I need to not worry about.

The first period was kind of boring, about eighty percent of the pressure was in the Redwings' zone. I was staying square to the puck well, playing on top of the crease and overall just feeling really comfortable when the play finally came to my end. The only part that got nerve wrecking was at the very end of the period. The horn goes off, and a players takes a shot from the face off dot. It wasn't a hard shot and it was WELL after the horn, but I broke the number one rule and watched the puck slide on the ice past my skate and into the goal. The ref blew his whistle and was yelling something. I thought he counted it as a goal, and I just stood in my crease with a "what the hell" kind of body language. I stood in the crease for a moment getting ready to argue with the ref, but then... I felt shame. I knew I shouldn't have done that, so I took responsibility for it, and started to skate to the bench. My teammate came over to me and said "Good job getting the penalty called!" I was confused and was like huh? He told me that because the puck was shot at me after the horn went off, he got called for a penalty. Dodged a bullet, lesson learned.

Second period after the power play, finally got exciting. Pressure started to be more consistent in my end, but I was still turning all the shots away. During a penalty kill about halfway through the period, a shot came in from about 10 feet out. I was squared to the puck, saw the shot the whole way, but one of my defense got his skate in the shooting lane about 4 feet in front of me, and the shot went off the top of his skate and then over my glove, top shelf. Oh well, those happen, it's now 4-1 so I shook it off and knew that there was nothing I could've done about it. A few minutes later, Jake took a shot at me through traffic from just above the circles. I wasn't able to see him, but I could see the puck and about half of his stick. He has a really quick release on his wrist shots, so when I saw the little bit of flex in his stick I knew the shot was coming, and caught it perfectly in the mesh of my glove. The look on his face was great!

Third period started and the pressure on me slowed down a little bit. My save of the game come in the third though. I don't remember what led up to it, but I can see the whole save in my mind clear as day right now. I was against my left, and a pass, or rebound (I honestly don't remember) left the puck about 3 feet outside of the crease on the right side in front of an open net. I started to butterfly slide across, but couldn't make it, so I dove head first across the crease. I saw the shot leave the stick, raise off the ice and bounce of my shoulder which was about a foot off the ice. The rebound went behind the net were a teammate was ale to pick it up and dump it down the ice. Knowing what kind of Tim Thomas type save I just made, hearing the two different yells of "OH!" come from the benches, ice and the stands was the biggest shot of adrenaline I have ever had playing hockey. My defense stopped when the puck was dumped down the ice and fist bumped me before heading back down after the puck. I had the biggest smie on my face for about two minutes after that save, in fact I'm smiling right now thinking about it. It kind of knocked the wind out of me, so I was having a hard time catching my breath after that save, but I never caught the chance to freeze the puck, I just sucked it up and fought through the desire to just lay on the ice.

After the game, my wife got a good picture of me and my two friends on the ice. I'll post it on here once I get home and have a chance to upload it.

Next game? The Redwings again! Let's hope the next game can be as fun and as exciting as this one was!

Here's the picture I talked about in my last post. I love playing hockey with these guys!