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.

Immortals Game 2010-09-20

I went into this game unfocused to tell you the truth. I showed up later than normal, had to rush to get ready, tape my stick at the rink, and so on. This is something I hate doing. The Immortals have a new goalie. He’s a bit more experienced, and comes out and plays the puck more. It really helped our team use our speed a lot more, and added a lot more flow to the game.

I came out flying. I was breaking up loose plays left and right. It was the second of a back-to-back night, so it didn’t take much to get my legs under me. I only had one sub who isn’t in the best of shape, so I didn’t get too many breaks. However, when we added someone else and it resulted in more sitting for me, that’s when I got tired. At one point I was sitting for a good six minutes (with whistles and stoppages). At that point my heart slowed down, and so did I. It made me play a lot worse.

I felt that night I was better than most anyone else on the ice until I had that long stoppage. At one point I came low, picked up a puck in my own zone. I had one guy pressuring me and I panicked and iced the puck. I was furious at that point. I had no idea what I was doing. Why did I ice it? I could have gone around, passed to the center, banked it off the boards – done so much more than ice it.

At one point we were on the power play. I still have to get better at what to do out there. I was set up along the half boards. I didn’t have a good shot, but I could see the other winger’s stick right there in the crease. With no pressure on me, and no shot, I decided I was going to put it on his stick. I fired it right at his stick and it went past the two d-men, right on his stick but it wasn’t square and popped up on him.

I had one assist off a rebound from my shot, but other than that I didn’t show up on the score sheet.