Coyotes vs. Chaos 2011-12-11

I haven't been too excited over the past month about hockey. The fact is, I've been playing a lot, and I've felt a little bit exhausted. When you play 4 times in 5 nights, you just kind of burn out and when you don't play as well either, I guess you get discouraged. Compare that to sitting at home, getting some reading done, playing with the dog and you can probably see why.

Still, I was moderately excited to play with the Coyotes this Sunday. I hadn't been on the ice in over a week, and as a result, I felt rusty. Playing the blue line again, I wasn't sure of a lot of things. Early on, my defensive partner took a roughing penalty after he and an opponent were pushing each other all the way down the ice. The whole time this was going on, our team had the puck, going down in their end. I would have loved to been more aggressive then, but I wasn't sure what would happen there. He did play well though, a lot better than I did. If I would pinch, he'd come back a bit just in case so I wouldn't get burned. He would make good passes across the ice if he had pressure on him in the defensive zone. When I dropped a puck along the boards, he was there to pick up a scrambled pass.

Once or twice, I flat out dropped the puck along the boards with no pressure. I was just going too fast, and didn't have my stick flat on the ice. The puck would roll off, or just stay there. I did take one penalty, as the dman was coming across the blue line, I took a slashing penalty, trying to get him to drop the puck. He did, but the whistle blew as I picked it up. It was a good call.

I had a good rush up the ice from my own end, where I did not pass. Once I got low in their zone, I did make a pass, and as soon as it left my stick, I bolted back to the blue line. This went against my mentality of being a stay at home d-man, but if I have the speed to go down, and around players, I should use it once in a while.

I think I was on ice for one goal against in the 8-2 loss, and I don't think I played well or felt comfortable until 10:00 left in the third. Let this be testimony that I need to play regularly.