While the Squirrels’ offense has, at times, struggled in recent weeks, there was no shortage of goals in last night’s domination of the Nordiques. With 2 goals each from Brent Machado and Bob Valdes, the Squirrels put up a 6 spot and cruised to a 6-1 victory, bringing their record on the season to 6-4-1, good for 13 standings points and 3rd place in the Bronze 2 Division.
Valdes opened the scoring by using his speed to gain the zone then slipped a wrist shot along the ice and through the 5-hole after cutting to the middle of the zone. Chi Pham followed up a few minutes later with his 1st of the season on a nice rush through the neutral zone and after beating more than one defender.
The second period saw 2 more goals from the Squirrels, the first on the powerplay coming off the stick of Machado as a result of a nice sequence of passing plays that undoubtedly should have resulted in more than just the one assist awarded to Don Marks. The second Squirrels goal of the period was scored a mere 2 minutes 10 seconds later by Valdes, his 2nd of the game. Dougie Winters was credited with the lone assist. The refs were apparently being very stingy in dolling out assists. On 6 goals, they only awarded 3 assists. What up wit dat? That is not at all indicative of the strong passing efforts of all Squirrels on this night.
The third period saw another 2 goals from the Squirrels (including a second powerplay goal) sandwiched around the lone Nordiques goal scored by Carl Fairbank. Tony Richelsen scored a water bottle-jumping top shelf wrist shot from a tough angle that would impress Alex Ovechkin. Brent Machado finished the scoring off with a weird rainbow shot that confused and seemed to paralyze Nordiques goalie, Terri Ball.
For the game, the Squirrels were a perfect 4 for 4 on the penalty kill and a perfect 2 for 2 on the power play. How many times has that happened in a Squirrels ice game? I’d venture rarely if ever. Goalie Eric Coulson was credited with 16 saves on 17 shots and made a few quality stops moving laterally.
Next up for the Squirrels is the 2nd meeting of the year against the Piranhas on January 16th. The Squirrels won the 1st battle in a closely contested 3-2 game back in October.
| Game Details |
| Scoring |
Shots on Goal |
|
1 |
2 |
3 |
Total |
| Screaming Squirrels |
2 |
2 |
2 |
6 |
| Nordiques |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
|
Squirrels 27
Nordiques 17
|
| Penalties |
| Period 1 |
| Screaming Squirrels – Chi Pham – (Tripping Minor), 2 min , 2:09 |
| Screaming Squirrels – Mark Tessar – (Tripping Minor), 2 min , 4:06 |
| Period 2 |
| Screaming Squirrels – Michael Ricci – (Tripping Minor), 2 min , 2:42 |
| Screaming Squirrels – Brent Machado – (Tripping Minor), 2 min , 10:02 |
| Nordiques – Regan Sweeney – (Holding Minor), 2 min , 12:02 |
| Period 3 |
| Nordiques – Mike Dunlap – (Tripping Minor), 2 min , 6:37 |
| Rosters |
| Screaming Squirrels |
Nordiques |
| Goalies |
|
|
|
| Players |
|
|
|
For the first time in recent memory, the Screaming Squirrels played with three full lines, and the results worked out very well. Hurting for offense throughout most of the season, the Squirrels put up 7 against the Vikings on Monday, before the penalty minutes started piling up for both teams. Jason Nehmer scored twice for the Squirrels while Rob Myers had a goal and two assists.
After watching HBO’s 24/7 with the Penguins and the Capitals, I realized that the referees in the NHL take a lot more crap from players than the beer league refs would tolerate. NHL refs get cursed at constantly without dishing out any further penalties. A beer league player might only question a call and get a misconduct. So, if it’s really true that NHL refs are more tolerant of being cursed at than beer league refs, then that should be number 11 on the list of