Regular Season Game #10

The Asnieres Castors came into this weekend on a three game lossing skid and it was time to make someone pay to get back to the winning ways. The Cherbourg Vikings were in town and the team was eager for the challenge of taking them on.

After a focused warm-up, we hit the ice flying in the first period. Our game is based on speed and puck movement, and we certainly were jumping to start the game. About five minutes into the frame, I managed to keep a loose puck in the offensive zone and put the puck towards the net. The rebound went into the corner where Mika Snellman was all over it. I pinched down to support and Mika moved the puck up to me. I gave a pass back to him in the corner before going to the net. Mika laid out a beauty pass for me to skate on to and I had all day to pick my spot. A quick low shot to the blocker side...and he shoots and scores!!! 1-0 for the good guys. Later on the same shift, I intercepted a pass in our zone and moved the puck to Franz Ehrhart coming out of our zone. I joined the rush to make it a 4-on-2. Franz laid a pass across to Andronik, who them set the puck out for me to wire home. Bingo Bango...2-0 Asnieres. Both goals are in the video as Mindy was working hard to capture great images. We continued to press our advantage in the first and notched two more goals by Patrice Kerner and Olivier Ducam. We did give up one to Cherbourg so the period ended 4-1.

In the second period, it was the Snellman & Pfeiffer show as we continued to score at will against the Cherbourg goalie. After a quick goal to start the period by JC Fornero to give us a 5-1 advantage, I found Mika with a pass from our end at their blueline. He made no mistake on the breakaway. Then being the unselfish teammate that he is, Mika decided to help out another teammate by setting him up to start scoring. Guillaume Pfeiffer notched back-to-back goals and we were cruising. Once again, we allowed Cherbourg to notch a goal, so the period ended with us having an 8-2 lead.

In the third period, Mika continued to play like a man possesed. He was all over the ice. Hitting, passing, shooting. It was a great performance. He set up Baptiste Blommaert early in the third before notching his second of the game on a beauty wrist shot. Cherbourg also notched a couple of goals in the third as our defense started to breakdown a little with the big lead. In the end, the good guys prevailled and pulled off the huge 10-4 win.

Mika finished with 2 goals and 4 assists on the night and was a human wreaking ball as well. He tried valliently to set me up for the hat-trick, but I just couldn't convert. I should also mention that even with the lofty score, Tommi Kuru, our goalie, played fantastic. He made some really great saves and kept the game out of reach for Cherbourg. Playing in front of him certainly adds alot of confidence to the guys knowing he is back there. I've added a couple of great saves to the video.