Nov 21, 2012 | rswigger | 388 views
"Wild" Night in Paisley
In one of the most entertaining games to watch this season, the Ice Dogs were able to tentatively pull into a tie for first overall in the league by beating the Wiarton Wild 1-0.
In a game that demonstrated the growth of both teams this season, the Ice Dogs played their final game against Bruce Pen Wednesday night. While the first was certainly dominated by AE, the road legs wore off in the second and third when the Wild came back with some good chances of their own.
Largely because of good goal-tending in both ends neither team could break the shut-outs through two periods of play. Bradley, as he has all season, came up big when he had to, and bailed out a few defensive breakdowns. In the opposite end of the rink, a slight improvement in offensive aggressiveness allowed for several good chances, but most were low shots and the goalie stopped them all. In all, the Ice Dogs had 3 breakaways in the first two periods, and another 2 in third, but to no avail. Baden fired one wide (like his old man) and Gavin hit the goalie in the mask not once, but twice...and still nothing went in.
Finally, deep in the third with 6 minutes to go, Dylan's line cashed in on a goal by Kendrew, assisted by Baden and Dylan. A beautiful quick-stick rebound buried the only goal of the game, and Kendrew found himself the game-winning goal-scorer for the second time in three games.
While the score sheet remained fairly clean, there was no shortage of highlight nights to mention. Chris has one of his best skating games, Ethan probably had the team's best fore-checking game for the Dogs, Brett played a solid and safe defensive game on the point, and Emmett nearly buried one positioned perfectly in front. But most notable was Logan who was skating hard all night and was relentless on the boards. On two occasions he role-modeled some perfect passes, and for all this was awarded the game puck.
Great game boys. Now practice up; tough games are coming!