11/3 Recap: Where are My Secondary Assists?

On a note when the average age was 53, one thing became very apparent when picking teams: offense would be at a premium.  Out of the 11 non goalies, 7 of the guys that played last night primarily only play defense.  That made for some very interesting teams.  The dark team consisted of Jared, Ward, Iggy, Mike M, Lee, and Lenny Young (making his Saugus debut).  The White team had John, Chris, Billy, Jason, and Nick.  Steve was the goalie for the White team, Dave was the goalie for the dark team.

Game 1 started well for the White team on a pretty tic-tac-toe goal: John to Billy to Chris.  Of course, due to our policy of not tracking second assists I get left out of the scoring (thanks Frendon!).  Now, if I told you that Jared would not score on any slap shots or breakaways all night, you'd have thought the dark team was in trouble...not quite.  Steve was outstanding in week 1, but struggled a bit last night with whatever Jared threw at him...mostly slow shots that either rolled five-hole or hit the middle of the net (Jared did have a nice one-timer that ended Game 1 though).  However, the Game 1 loss was not on Steve - our defense decided the best strategy was to hand Jared the ball whenever he got in the offensive zone.  Of course, this led to the controversy of the night as Nick tried to coach up Jason and Jason was having NONE of it - "let's just play!".  Jason must have known that Nick's advice would be as good as Frendon's coaching as Nick himself got burned the same way that Jason had at different times throughout the night.

Speaking of coaching, after the White team lost Game 1 5-3, they applied a coaching move of their own.  An underplayed storyline from Game 1 was Lenny and Mike slashing, tripping, hugging, body-checking, and probably spitting on anyone that came down their side of the offensive zone.  In Game 2 Chris Young went and played that side.  It paid dividends - the White team was able to cycle the puck quite a bit in Games 2 and 3 and pulled out wins in both (5-3, 5-2).  In the end, in spite of Jared pulling out the puppy dog eyes, he couldn't convince everyone to play a fourth game.  Of course, after watching the Pats game, we probably should have.

Notes from last night:  I thought that the Dark's team defense struggled for most of the night, but not where you would think.  They almost never got beat for a break away, and played any odd man rushes fairly well.  Where they struggled was in coverage in the offensive zone.  Guys would get open and keep the pressure on in the zone leading to the White team getting good scoring chances.  Transition wise they were not able to help the Dark team's offense either...Dave made a ridiculous save on a one-timer attempt that I had in Game 3.  It came pretty close to the save on the 3 foot slap shot that he had against Jared in Week 1.  Three weeks in and already 2 good candidates for saves of the year...I thought that Jason and Nick had some nice plays in the offensive zone.  Jason has pretty good vision for someone who usually plays defense.  And Nick?  He actually hit the net on a couple of his shots, including the game winner for game 2.  Still not as impressive though as Chris scoring goals off of nearly every part of his body.

Next game - next Sunday at 6