dondo
01-21-2013, 11:35 PM
Pink shirted flash mob overshadows game ;)
Tips Topple Giants
Vancouver 0 Everett 4
The almost boys wasted their PP chances and were slow to respond on the PK. The boys need to take notes on how Everett breaks out of the zone. First of all they don’t have people standing (and by standing I mean standing still and easy to pick off) at the red line waiting for a freaking pass and secondly they come out with speed and are already moving when the D makes that quick pass out of the zone. The G’s should also watch video and take note of how the Tips shut-down the front of their net. They use some big D, but more importantly are in the right position and no-one gets near the net without paying the price. Conversely on the other side of the puck the front of the net was open for business. The Tips never ever paid a price for going to the slot and got premium chances with great regularity. That kind of defense is less about skill and more about hard freaking work, pure and simple, and is something that continues to be woefully lacking in the Giants game. It’s not like Everett is a monster skilled team, but when they play us they look like the Winterhawks and Blazers rolled up into one ball of effectiveness.
We have matched up very badly versus this team this season and it showed on Sunday afternoon in an arena packed with kids on Kids Day at the Giants game (the first 1000 kids got a Jack The Giant bobblehead). One of the most exciting parts of the game was a flash mob all in shades of pink shirts occupying the upper deck North end of the arena who did a choreographed 5 minute performance in the third period. Kudos to them and their work as they were quite entertaining and seemed to be well-rehearsed especially for close to 1000 mainly kids.
The Giants gave up the first goal again, but at least it took until almost the 17 minute mark and not 1:30 into the game. The Tips scored some easy goals and did not really have to pay any prices to go to what should be the hardest spot on the ice. You can’t blame Payton Lee in this one; not that he was blameless, but the team was awful in their own end of the ice. I have to say I liked the game along the boards for the Giants better, but they couldn’t break out of their zone to save their life and their passes bobbled frequently.
The Tips scored an unassisted tally off of an awful give-away to open the scoring. The Tips notched and PP marker in the second off of a defection in the front it appeared to go off a Giants defender trying to block a shot to me. Early in the third just after a PP had expired the Tips found twine off of one of those bad luck goals. The shot hit a player in front of the net and bounced out to the open side right onto a Tip’s player’s stick. Curiously a similar play at the other had the puck go off a Tips players knee and then skate and out of harms way. I know the Giants are not that good, but seriously a few different bounces and it’s a different game. I could cite three instances where the loose puck took a Tips favourable bounce. Anyway the boys were not awful and worked fairly hard, but allowed themselves to be pushed around more than I like. A PP for the Tips 7:20 into the third gave them their 4 goal bulge. The G’s battled well along the boards, but didn’t get to the odd loose puck in front of Daniel Cotton and although Cotton never had to be brilliant he was excellent down low with his pads. As a friend of mine said, that he earned the shut-out, but was never forced to earn the win. I think that’s a pretty astute observation of what happened.
Fight Night: Jackson Houck v. Stathis Soumelidis. Houck rocked the Tips 15 year old AP with a clean hard check along the end boards and was taken to task by Soumelidis, a hulking euro player who is second on his team in PIMs. Houck got demolished mainly by a big uppercut and was falling. I wasn’t too impressed with Soumelidis taking some cheap shots to the back of Houck’s head as he went down though.
Zebra Cage: Brett Montsion and Chris Crich. These two were garbage on the night. Bad calls, poor calls, missed calls, over-exaggerated calls, generally inconsistent and blind. A very badly called game all-around. Funny how Montsion who didn’t call (hardly) anything against the G’s in Kelowna came up with a ton of crap to call in this game. Maybe he’s biased against the home team just because.
I am not saying the Giants got screwed, I am saying the refs sucked all-around.
The linesmen weren’t too sharp either, waiving some pretty obvious icing calls and seeming to have a moving blue-line for offside calls. A perfect example of how much work the WHL and CHL need to do to educate their officials as they seem to make up a hell of a lot out of thin air, but mainly lack consistency. My biggest grumble is not calling particular infractions and then pulling the softest version of the call they have been letting go out of the blue. The players, coaches and fans deserve if not quality at least some consistency. That was entirely absent on Sunday.
The Giants out shot the Tips 31-22. The home squad went 0 for 6 on the worst PP execution I have seen in weeks. Coughing up the puck easily, not breaking into the zone with numbers, dumping and sort of chasing and not using their man-advantage as just that. I think they had one PP where they were actually able to keep it in the zone for an extended period of time. Lee had to make a bunch of stops while his team was on the PP, a couple of the big variety and that is just not acceptable. That’s not skill, it is puck support, focus and smart puck handling. The Tips were great with their pressure, hassling the puck carrier while killing penalties, but they were able to do it so effectively because it took so long for the Giants to make a decision with the puck with most of them standing still instead of cycling around the offensive zone to try to get open. The Silvertips had very little problem shutting down the static PP of the Giants. The Tips went 2 for 5 on the PP and also scoring a goal seconds after a PP had expired.
I liked Cain Franson’s hustle tonight, but his effectiveness was lacking and he has become predictable. That diagonal pass through the slot is a nice play, but when you do it 15 times a game it becomes easy to intercept. He’s a creative player he needs more variety and he needs to go to the net with the puck sometimes, back-off the defenders and keep them guessing. Dalton Sward was also better more consistently on Sunday. I felt he was hungrier along the boards, but again on some of his good rushes he would cut around the net instead of driving it. The Giants battled well for the most part, but they weren’t smart and the separation between players was often too big, especially on the break out, which really struggled Sunday. There are many good things about the Giants game, but the lapses and lack of effort in their own end of the ice need to be fixed.
Next Up: The Giants head over the pond to Victoria for back-to-back games Friday and Saturday. The boys are hoping for a better showing and some more goals, but really they need to solidify their game and work in their own end of the ice. The Royals need to pay a price every time they venture into the slot or to the front of the net.
Three Stars
1. Joshua Winquist
2. Mirco Mueller
3. Daniel Cotton
Dondo’s Hardhat: goes to – Luca Leone.. It’s kind of going off the boards, but I really liked the 16 year old line in this game and Luca was not afraid to press in the offensive zone and try to create things. This is turning out to be a savvy free-agent signing and I am hoping he grows with each coming year. The kid has the right attitude and I like his speed and for lack of a better word, fearlessness.
Tips Topple Giants
Vancouver 0 Everett 4
The almost boys wasted their PP chances and were slow to respond on the PK. The boys need to take notes on how Everett breaks out of the zone. First of all they don’t have people standing (and by standing I mean standing still and easy to pick off) at the red line waiting for a freaking pass and secondly they come out with speed and are already moving when the D makes that quick pass out of the zone. The G’s should also watch video and take note of how the Tips shut-down the front of their net. They use some big D, but more importantly are in the right position and no-one gets near the net without paying the price. Conversely on the other side of the puck the front of the net was open for business. The Tips never ever paid a price for going to the slot and got premium chances with great regularity. That kind of defense is less about skill and more about hard freaking work, pure and simple, and is something that continues to be woefully lacking in the Giants game. It’s not like Everett is a monster skilled team, but when they play us they look like the Winterhawks and Blazers rolled up into one ball of effectiveness.
We have matched up very badly versus this team this season and it showed on Sunday afternoon in an arena packed with kids on Kids Day at the Giants game (the first 1000 kids got a Jack The Giant bobblehead). One of the most exciting parts of the game was a flash mob all in shades of pink shirts occupying the upper deck North end of the arena who did a choreographed 5 minute performance in the third period. Kudos to them and their work as they were quite entertaining and seemed to be well-rehearsed especially for close to 1000 mainly kids.
The Giants gave up the first goal again, but at least it took until almost the 17 minute mark and not 1:30 into the game. The Tips scored some easy goals and did not really have to pay any prices to go to what should be the hardest spot on the ice. You can’t blame Payton Lee in this one; not that he was blameless, but the team was awful in their own end of the ice. I have to say I liked the game along the boards for the Giants better, but they couldn’t break out of their zone to save their life and their passes bobbled frequently.
The Tips scored an unassisted tally off of an awful give-away to open the scoring. The Tips notched and PP marker in the second off of a defection in the front it appeared to go off a Giants defender trying to block a shot to me. Early in the third just after a PP had expired the Tips found twine off of one of those bad luck goals. The shot hit a player in front of the net and bounced out to the open side right onto a Tip’s player’s stick. Curiously a similar play at the other had the puck go off a Tips players knee and then skate and out of harms way. I know the Giants are not that good, but seriously a few different bounces and it’s a different game. I could cite three instances where the loose puck took a Tips favourable bounce. Anyway the boys were not awful and worked fairly hard, but allowed themselves to be pushed around more than I like. A PP for the Tips 7:20 into the third gave them their 4 goal bulge. The G’s battled well along the boards, but didn’t get to the odd loose puck in front of Daniel Cotton and although Cotton never had to be brilliant he was excellent down low with his pads. As a friend of mine said, that he earned the shut-out, but was never forced to earn the win. I think that’s a pretty astute observation of what happened.
Fight Night: Jackson Houck v. Stathis Soumelidis. Houck rocked the Tips 15 year old AP with a clean hard check along the end boards and was taken to task by Soumelidis, a hulking euro player who is second on his team in PIMs. Houck got demolished mainly by a big uppercut and was falling. I wasn’t too impressed with Soumelidis taking some cheap shots to the back of Houck’s head as he went down though.
Zebra Cage: Brett Montsion and Chris Crich. These two were garbage on the night. Bad calls, poor calls, missed calls, over-exaggerated calls, generally inconsistent and blind. A very badly called game all-around. Funny how Montsion who didn’t call (hardly) anything against the G’s in Kelowna came up with a ton of crap to call in this game. Maybe he’s biased against the home team just because.
I am not saying the Giants got screwed, I am saying the refs sucked all-around.
The linesmen weren’t too sharp either, waiving some pretty obvious icing calls and seeming to have a moving blue-line for offside calls. A perfect example of how much work the WHL and CHL need to do to educate their officials as they seem to make up a hell of a lot out of thin air, but mainly lack consistency. My biggest grumble is not calling particular infractions and then pulling the softest version of the call they have been letting go out of the blue. The players, coaches and fans deserve if not quality at least some consistency. That was entirely absent on Sunday.
The Giants out shot the Tips 31-22. The home squad went 0 for 6 on the worst PP execution I have seen in weeks. Coughing up the puck easily, not breaking into the zone with numbers, dumping and sort of chasing and not using their man-advantage as just that. I think they had one PP where they were actually able to keep it in the zone for an extended period of time. Lee had to make a bunch of stops while his team was on the PP, a couple of the big variety and that is just not acceptable. That’s not skill, it is puck support, focus and smart puck handling. The Tips were great with their pressure, hassling the puck carrier while killing penalties, but they were able to do it so effectively because it took so long for the Giants to make a decision with the puck with most of them standing still instead of cycling around the offensive zone to try to get open. The Silvertips had very little problem shutting down the static PP of the Giants. The Tips went 2 for 5 on the PP and also scoring a goal seconds after a PP had expired.
I liked Cain Franson’s hustle tonight, but his effectiveness was lacking and he has become predictable. That diagonal pass through the slot is a nice play, but when you do it 15 times a game it becomes easy to intercept. He’s a creative player he needs more variety and he needs to go to the net with the puck sometimes, back-off the defenders and keep them guessing. Dalton Sward was also better more consistently on Sunday. I felt he was hungrier along the boards, but again on some of his good rushes he would cut around the net instead of driving it. The Giants battled well for the most part, but they weren’t smart and the separation between players was often too big, especially on the break out, which really struggled Sunday. There are many good things about the Giants game, but the lapses and lack of effort in their own end of the ice need to be fixed.
Next Up: The Giants head over the pond to Victoria for back-to-back games Friday and Saturday. The boys are hoping for a better showing and some more goals, but really they need to solidify their game and work in their own end of the ice. The Royals need to pay a price every time they venture into the slot or to the front of the net.
Three Stars
1. Joshua Winquist
2. Mirco Mueller
3. Daniel Cotton
Dondo’s Hardhat: goes to – Luca Leone.. It’s kind of going off the boards, but I really liked the 16 year old line in this game and Luca was not afraid to press in the offensive zone and try to create things. This is turning out to be a savvy free-agent signing and I am hoping he grows with each coming year. The kid has the right attitude and I like his speed and for lack of a better word, fearlessness.