2) Got run over twice by the same guy, I think. The first time took place between the circles and center court: I was forechecking, the D passes it so I hockey turn to my right and all of a sudden I'm on my butt. The guy who hit me is lucky my head didn't get hit - it was an unnecessary hit, even some of the guys were saying that they're surprised the ref didn't call a penalty. I got back up and skated back to the D zone and put my hands in the air like "wtf was that all about" but I wans't upset. I'm not stupid enough to get a retaliatory penalty.
b) Second time, I skate to the slot and stand there.. the puck was on the LW boards, I'm standing slightly on the LW side, and then I see this guy coming right at me and plows into me.. He asked me if I was OK .. I think I said "yeah" and got up and backchecked pretty hard. I don't go easy.
3) Sharks lost .. Wangs might be movin' on.
4) One time I turned around to skate backwards 'cause it was me and another defender back. I went to skate with my left leg and I fell.. not sure what happened.. it gave them a breakaway though. Luckily, they didn't score.
5) To open up the game on my first shift, I forechecked hard, made the D man cough up the puck.. put my stick to the left where I saw him teleporting the pass... hits my stick and goes maybe 5 or 10 feet behind me so I take off to the net 'cause my teammate was right htere. He coulda gave me a one timer but he shot it short side top cheese. 1-0.
b) Same thing happens, I forecheck, the guy gets the puck, I go up the right side again and he goes left side.. top cheese short side. 2-0. I don't think I got an assist on those, even though I technically touched the puck both times. Stats don't mean that much to me, I know what I accomplish.
6) I'm not really faster than most of the guys. I mean, on the forecheck, if they got the first step, I could keep up but I couldn't catch 'em. That was the two good guys on the toher team, anyway.. nobody else really got the puck on their team and held it long enough.
7) The one good guy, he was coming up the RW side.. I'm on RD so I let the LD take him but I quickly turned to that side 'cause i knew the D was gonna get burned (he did).. I was like Letang when he does that, comes over and gets the big hit. Instead, the puck carrier looks up and sees me and turns back.. dang straight, you aren't getting a shot on net iwth me there.
8) It was a two on one for the other team, so I quickly take off back to the net in, go between our D and their guy who doesn't have the puck.. then when I got to the high slot I laid out and put my stick out in front.. perfect play, 'cause the guy went for the one timer and hte puck hit my stick.. I was on my knees and hit the puck away.. a teammate got it and fumbled it or something so I had to hit it again to the boards. Best play of the night, by far. I never see anybody else lay out. Heck, I barely ever see anybody else back check like me.. if I was a bit faster, I would be more dominant in that regard. I'll get there, just gotta keep playin'.
9) We were up 4-0.. then somehow 4-2. I go out for my shift and I'm upset 'cause the older guy on our team doesnt frickin' backcheck AT ALL. He barely forechecks, but he'll be the first to yell at teammates to GO AFTER HIM, PUT PRESSURE ON HIM. Doesn't do it to me , nobody did 'cause I just do that stuff automatically. Oh wait, I think somebody did tell me once to put pressure on them when they were going behind their net.. nah, I don't do that anymore, that's when you get burned. More on this later. So he's out there, and if this was ice hockey, he NEVER went into our D zone past the blue line. and he always played way too far up on D so he'd get burned pretty easily and/or let the other Dman on their team get wide open passes BEHIND him.. I mean, how the hell does that happen.. it doesn't if you play your position correctly. So he's out there not moving much and he cherry picks 'cause that's all he's good at doing in terms of positioning. I was getting pissed on the bench saying things like "It's easy to stay out there for 5 minutes when you don't move" to which a teammate responded: Yeah, but we don't expect him to. My response: But he doesn't even try. He finally comes off and I stayed out there for 5.5 minutes, mostly playing defense, trying to cover the points.. Yes, both points, 'cause the other winger would collapse most of time time.
Back to the original point.. we were up 4-0, then 4-2, then this shift I think they scored two goals 'cause we couldn't get the puck out of the zone. If I remember correctly, the guy who scored the first 4 goals for us and me were the only two people actually trying to take the puck up by ourselves.
10) I at least pass the puck when I see an open man. The other guy is definitely better than me and probably faster so he can do with it.. I don't really blame him for not passing, especially tonight when nobody was doing much.
11) I get the puck at the bottom of the LD circle in the D zone, look up quickly, there's a D to my left near the boards and a D at center line with a 3rd D somewhere near their slot. The cherry picker old guy is the whole way up on the LW O-zone faceoff dot wide open (of course, cherry picking) so I perfectly passed it to him.. right on his stick, man. the first D guy was easy to get the puck around, but I had to pass it in a very narrow range to get it past the 2nd D's stick and onto my teammate's tape before the guy in their slot could come over to stop it.. I also had to pass it pretty hard.. Hard and accurate can be challenging, but not for me. He turned around and shot it.. 5 hole maybe? not sure but it went in.. got my assist.
12) I didn't make one bad pass all night.
13) I did fuck up the play once.. It was my first time iwth the puck and I was going up LW side.. a backchecker is coming from behind so I went to deke right or osmething and I think he poked it. I quickly turned around and went to hit it and barely got it.. it was weird, gave them a 2 on 1 but my backcheck stopped it. When I went to the bench I said "I really fucked up the play there." The other guys were like "no you didn't, you were fine." But I wasn't.. didn't mess up again after that.
14) If Todd the puck hog was there (So glad he wasn't), that play alone would have made him not pass to me at all. We actually played more like a team without him. Hope he never shows up again.
15) I took the puck up at least 3 times, all from LW side.. one time I had 2 D in front so I went left to right and shot it.. hit the LD's shin pad or something.
b) Another time, I had one D in front and a 2nd D coming from the middle.. I deked to the right, cut up the middle and shot it.. went into the goalie's chest. Looked weak from my point of view.. who knows, though.
c) Had a teammate in front of me at first and then he went to the left, I think.. I cut tothe middle and then to the RW side and shot it but it got deflected wide or something.
d) end of the game htere were 3 times alone which I mention in #19.
16) There were 3 perfect breakout passes that I made.. maybe more.
a) I'm on the RD side, pass it to the RW guy right in front of him at the perfect speed so that it slowed down when it got in front so he wouldn't mess it up.
b) LD side to the cherry picker. Already mentioned this. I'd say this was the 2nd best play of the night.
C) LD side, I was gonna take the puck myself but I saw the goal scorer guy cutting across from LW to the center court and decided to pass it and go to the net.
d) RD side and I was gonna take it 'cause the RW was only like 20 feet in front with a Dman in front of him.. instead, I saw a guy going up the middle so I passed it to him with the perfect speed yet again.
e) oh dude, the 3rd best play of the night - There was maybe 45 second left, if that. I'm on the LD side at the top of the circle and get the puck.. I see my LW buddy skating up to the net so I passed it way in front 'cause he had a backchecker right on him (presumably it was their LD who was playing up way too far). It would have been a perfect breakaway opportunity but he was too slow.
17) 4th best play of the night - On the bench, the cherry picker guy is saying "we need to be more aggressive on the puck".. yeah, no crap. So, I'm covering the point and the LD guy gets it while i'm on RW. He skates to the middle and I see that he's gonna go to the board side (to my right, his left) so I go straight up and then go right just as I see him cut over. I ran right into him, but somehow he kept his balance and the puck was behind me and in front of him.. Wasn't much I could do, I tried to backcheck but he was already at the top of the circle by the time it was over. I know he didn't score, not sure what happened.
18) 5th best play - Maybe 30 seconds left at this point. Imagine that from my perspective you're looking north. The guy is on LW side going behind their net so I go from LW to the front of the net and then start slowly skating backwards as he comes out the RW side. I keep up with him and then turn around to skate forwards while he goes up the same side (his LW, my RD). The other forechecker got burned really badly, not sure wtf he was doing. He didn't even try to stop the guy. So I'm keeping up with him and as we get to the bottom of the circle, I bend my left knee and put my right calf and skate on the ground 'cause I figured he was gonna try to pass. The next thing I feel is something on the back of my right skate.. I guess he tried to pass but it hit my skate.. I lost my balance 'cause I was on my left skate (I must have to change the wheels or something, it didn't feel right at all for most of the night) and the puck was right behind me when I regained my footing. I tapped it a foot or two for the RD to get it.
19) There wasn't much time left in the game and I'm on the LW side playing D. Somehow the puck comes to me, I think maybe the Dman on my team poked the puck from the attacker. I turn around and take it up ice, there are 3 D in front of me and a teammate on my right, so I shot the puck from just past center ice. Hit the Dman and they tried to pass it behind me to a cherry picker. I didn't realize they pulled their goalie.. I still wouldn't have scored 'cause the 2 D ahead were in their slot. All I know is that the pass behind me was bad and I ended up getting the puck from a teammate I think.. so this time I lifted the puck really high, it would have gone in but a Dman put his glove on it. (Maybe there wasn't a 3rd time, I thought there was). So he gets the loose puck and I hear somebody yell "Shoot it!" so he shoots it from the faceoff circle in his own D zone. It was pretty weak and coming toward me, so I put my skate sideways on the ground and deflected it.. There must have been 2 or 3 seconds left as I skated away from the puck 'cause the whistle didnt' blow for a while.. I turned around to make sure they didn't score and that's when the buzzer went off.
20) 5 of our 6 or 7 goals were scored by the goal scorer.
21) I definitely have to learn how to hockey stop if I want to be more effective of a backchecker. I don't like to overcommit 'cause the good guys will hockey stop and then I keep going in the same direction.
22) The reason that I don't like to commit to their D guys who take the puck behind their net is that when I used to go after them, and I when I see people do it nowadays, the Dman either taps the puck behind them against the boards to the other side, between the attacker's skates/stick, or take off... all 3 scenarios result in the forechecker getting burned, so I usually stay in front of the net and see which way they plan on going then I skate backwards a few strides and turn to the direction that they are going.. It's too easy for the attacker to switch sides when the forechecker is skating forward so I try to keep a backwards stride, let them come after me, make a move and then I go in that direction with them.
This would be a lot different in ice hockey..There are too many people in the neutral zone to allow the Dman to carry the puck up so they are basically forced to pass the puck instead of trying to beat the forechecker. In Roller, everyone usually spreads out so the forechecker gets burned if they play the puck instead of shutting down the attacking lane. This wouldn't apply to any skater who is superhumanly fast, but most people have the same range of top speed.
This would be a lot different in ice hockey..There are too many people in the neutral zone to allow the Dman to carry the puck up so they are basically forced to pass the puck instead of trying to beat the forechecker. In Roller, everyone usually spreads out so the forechecker gets burned if they play the puck instead of shutting down the attacking lane. This wouldn't apply to any skater who is superhumanly fast, but most people have the same range of top speed.
hockey again tomorrow before work - Wednesday and Thursday night, booooom
The guys at stick time defintiely play slower and it makes me look a lot better.. Then I go to the game and the good guys pick up the speed which makes things more difficult on the forecheck, backcheck, and probablhy with stick handling though I didn't try to beat any Dmen tonight, instead I went for the shots.
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