Game 2 vs PEI...the day after ?

[hal]

Don't let the shot count fool you , there may have been 5-7 legitimate scoring chances . Only positives I drew out of it was that Verroneau looked OK and Dionne was at least trying to park himself in front of the net . Those predicting 500 hockey .............my offer of a wager still stands !.............Money ......Beer ............pretty flexible . I don't know too many regular fans that are willing to be patient and Bearcat was preaching that on the post game radio show . High scoring team coming in next week ..........could get ugly !

[ppinto123]

Eagles will need their forwards going fast or at least a legitimate shut down line to play against other team's first line, lastnight's game Macdougall-Hertzberg and I believe Cuzner line was used against rocket top line for a shutdown roll which would be hard going forward , good looking goalie tandom eagles have going forward

[Jack Bauer]

Don't worry about it guys.

Mario was quoted in Friday's paper as saying he didn't touch the future last year with his trades so there's nothing to worry about and those 3 1st rounders I thought we traded for last year should be coming back to help us any time now.......right?

I mean the organization wouldn't lie to us now, would they?

[Deer]

It was pretty much the same story as Friday night - the guys worked hard, just couldn't get any offense going. Like hal said, the 30 shots are pretty deceiving - most of them were from the outside and Mosher could have handled them sitting in a rocking chair. CB had a few more chances than it had Friday night, but still - they could easily have been shut out in both games. Both their goals this weekend were sort of lucky - one was a pinball bounce off two legs, the other was a fortunate rolling puck.

The loss of Horyl was so glaring it wasn't funny - as Bearcat said on the postgame show, he's probably our only natural goal scorer right now. Some of the younger kids could develop into goal scorers later, but at the moment Horyl and maybe Hertzberg are the only proven shooters we have - and without him it looked like the kids had to climb Mount Everest just to score one goal.

A positive though is that I remember the 04-05 team looking the exact same way early on in that season. Couldn't score to save their lives... I think Neil Smith led the team in scoring after 10 games! Then Steve Dixon got going and Guillaume Demers came back from injury and suddenly we were OK. Bad news is that this year's team has even less offensive depth than that team had, and Horyl coming back from injury like Demers did........ there are varying reports around the rink on how likely that is. For now the team is keeping pretty quiet, just saying he was out for this weekend and will be reevaluated over the coming week....... but you get the feeling the Eagles might have to get used to life without our local sniper.

One thing that was really glaring last night was that Morgan Ellis was asked to do too much. He was dog tired on too many occasions - you simply can't make smart decisions when you're running on fumes. I know Ellis is our captain and best overall player, but we're only hurting ourselves if he's relied on too much.

Thank God this weekend we had goaltending - otherwise both of those games are 5-1 or so results. Verroneau was excellent, almost as good as Lacerte was Friday night - and that's saying something because Lacerte was lights out. Verroneau made two saves in the first period last night, on bang-bang plays across the crease, that were nothing short of larcenous! One save he made near the end of the 1st period has to make the Q's weekly highlight reel...... TSN Highlight of the Night material for sure! It looked physically impossible for him to get across in time, but somehow he thwarted the one-timer... crazy save. I disagree with Bearcat's comment in the postgame show that Verroneau should have had the third goal, the backbreaker they scored right after CB got its lone goal to get back in the game. Just because it went in through his pads doesn't mean it was weak.... that was a quick, hard, well-placed release by Paradis to finish off a tic-tac-toe play. It was stoppable, but not weak IMO.

You can see the wheels turning in the heads of some of the rookies.... Plouffe, Jodoin, W Carrier, etc are on a learning curve when it comes to creating offense at the major junior level. You can see them improving, but it's going to take several weeks. By Xmas it'll be nice to see guys like that start popping goals with semi-regularity. But this weekend was ugly... guys throwing it back to the point when they should have shot on net.... two guys going into the same area of the offensive zone and getting their wires crossed....... glaring turnovers all over the ice....... all part of the learning curve.

What matters most to me is we have a hard-working, likeable hockey team again and we have some promising youngsters. The struggles to score will be painful to watch, but that should get a bit better as the season goes on. At least it's better to watch than an underachieving veteran team like last year's club. That team was spinning its tires.... this one should only get better.

Patrick Roy and Quebec in town next weekend - that's usually an entertaining night at the rink no matter where the two teams are in the standings.

[mikeb]

Horyl injured?

Hasn't he been injured every year.

[bois]

speaking of injured guys.... how did Yetman look considering he was playing his first games in almost a year?

[christopher]

First two home games of the year and not at all what I expected.

I thought that we'd have a tough time with goaltending and at least score a few goals per night.

I know its only two games, but, you can already get a sense that this team is going to have a tough, tough, tough time scoring goals. Joseph even said after the game, we're not blessed with a natural goal scorer. I disagree. I think both Hertzberg and Horyl are natural goal scorers. Just a question of when Horyl returns, if ever.

Goaltending was fantastic, both nights! As deer mentioned, the cliche was TOTALLY true, they gave us a chance to win.

Not looking forward to seeing J.A.M come to town.

[Deer]

Sept 27, 2010 8:38:06 GMT -4 bois said:

speaking of injured guys.... how did Yetman look considering he was playing his first games in almost a year?

Pretty solid, played a conservative game in a decent number of minutes on the second pairing I believe. If that's how he looks after missing almost a year, he should be a good player once he's in the full swing of things.

[hal]

Sept 27, 2010 10:43:21 GMT -4 christopher said:

First two home games of the year and not at all what I expected.

I thought that we'd have a tough time with goaltending and at least score a few goals per night.

I know its only two games, but, you can already get a sense that this team is going to have a tough, tough, tough time scoring goals. Joseph even said after the game, we're not blessed with a natural goal scorer. I disagree. I think both Hertzberg and Horyl are natural goal scorers. Just a question of when Horyl returns, if ever.

Goaltending was fantastic, both nights! As deer mentioned, the cliche was TOTALLY true, they gave us a chance to win.

Not looking forward to seeing J.A.M come to town.

Hertzberg needs someone to play with though . "WILL OVER SKILL" might have a whole new meaning this year . If Mario molds this bunch into Memorial Cup contenders in 15 months then he is right up there with Chris Angel and David Blaine ..........................................a Mario Copperfield if you will !

[elementz]

Mario Copperfield has a nice ring to it.