Generating offense has been the main struggle of the Squirrels all season, but they’ve always found an exception when playing against the lowly Laughing Skulls. But a relative lack of effort led to the Squirrels giving up a season-high five goals – two more than in any previous game – in a 5-2 loss. The Squirrels also squandered several power plays, including two-man advantages, though they did outshoot the Skulls, 29-15.

With only three subs on the bench, the Screaming Squirrels were in desperate need of goals and a win after a recent slump. And they got it.

With only two true defensemen in the lineup, the Squirrels moved forward Jeff Bobeck back to skate with Tony Richelsen and Doug Winters. That worked fine as the Squirrels limited the Skulls to 18 shots with Eric Coulson turning away 17 of them.

Brent Machado got the scoring started in the first period, but the shifts were long and the Squirrels knew there was a lot more time left. The Skulls goaltender, Shane Smith, made many great saves and kept the Squirrels moving by playing the puck instead of allowing the face-off, which would’ve enabled the Squirrels to catch their breath.

The second period ended up being even better for the Squirrels as Mark Tessar (from the roller team) scored in the first game back on the ice in several years. Tony Richelsen added another late in the period and the Squirrels took a 3-1 lead into the third period.

But the Skulls struck back as Vincent Barracchini’s individual effort cut the lead to 3-1.

Then Smith made a mistake. Skating out of the crease to clear the puck, he hit it right to Machado, who wristed a shot into an empty net, deflating the Skulls. A few minutes later, Machado completed the hat trick, then Doug Winters did his Mike Green at-his-best impression with some sort of spinorama move. Richelsen scored again shortly after, and it appeared he had scored once more from behind the blue line but the play was called offsides. Regardless, the Skulls weren’t happy that Smith had let in the shot, though it ended up helping the Skulls because the faceoff went into the Squirrels’ zone.

With just a few seconds remaining, Bobeck got into a minor scuffle with someone, but Barracchini took exception and clobbered Bobeck from behind. Barracchini is about a foot taller and 100 pounds heavier than Bobeck and literally blindsided him. The refs ended the game on the play, giving Barracchini a five minute major and game misconduct.

Maybe it was a lingering Saturday night hangover or perhaps it was the old geezer officiating with Bruce Bagley, but heading into the 3^rd period of Sunday’s early afternoon game against the Laughing Skulls, the Squirrels had drawn more penalty calls than they had scored goals.  Defenseman and former league penalty minute leader, Dan Carter, made a strong case that he deserves the title once again this year.  However, after his 4^th minor penalty in the 2^nd period he was excused from the game by league rule.  Carter, now tied for 2^nd with the Skulls’ Francis Conlon at 72 PIM only trails the Vikings’ Eddie Ryland by 2 PIM for the league lead.  “I was kinda hoping they would throw a 10 in there somewhere”, said a dejected Carter after the game. “But you can’t make them change the call.”

With Carter out of the way, the Squirrels managed to calm down in the penalty department and clung precariously to a 5-3 lead in the 3^rd period built on goals by Jason Nehmer, Matt Brolik, Dan Carter, Don Marks, and Paul Patrinicola.  Pesky hothead Eddie Zaruba had managed to strike for a pair in addition to a goal by Anthony Campanella to keep the Skulls within striking distance.  That’s when Squirrels forward Tony Richelson took matters into his own hands, first skating past everyone for an easy powerplay goal around the halfway mark of the period and scoring again a little more than 2 minutes later after Borlik netted his 2^nd goal of the afternoon.  From there it was lights out for the Skulls.