GAME 5 - HCI VS OLL

 GAME 5 - HCI VS OLL 

HCI 3 - 0 OLL

A sharknado wipes out the dragons

Stars of the game

* Evan Buitenhuis, HCI Goalie - he got the shutout and had an outrageous stick save on what should have been a sitter for Bičevskis, in the style of the legendary playoff saves like Braden Holtby and Adin Hill.

** Arvin Atwal - Had some nice moments, including a lovely shimmy-and-shot and some spot-on pinches and recoveries when defending. Was not at fault for the own goal off his skate; he had tied up his man excellently.

*** Lukaš Horak - The three goals were either extremely high danger chances or a fluke own goal. Apart from them, he played excellently under intense pressure from HCI. The highlight of this was a monstrous quadra-save.

Lineup

Mašič and Ćosić both returned from illness. Both looked like they still hadn't arrived at full fitness, though. 

Game flow

P1

16:12 PEN ON OLL - Sabolič for hooking. Late call and quite soft. Killed off successfully!

11:09 PEN ON OLL - Beričič high stick. Just an accident. Lucky not to draw blood and make it a double. Nice to see Zajc and Simšič out on PK3. Ćosić and Pavlin were not swapped out; I wonder if that was intentional or if they didn't want to risk a change. Killed off.

5:25 GOAL HCI - they caught us changing lines (1st to 2nd) and connect a lovely play together, started by a backwards pass. Ege came across and left the back post open, which Lavoie was too far away to cover.

HCI are skating rings around us at points here and look scintillating when puckhandling. Did they bring in some hot new signings or something?

P2 

17:57 PEN ON HCI - crosscheck on Pance.

Pance is out with PP1 now, replacing Simšič. (Pance, Lavoie, Atwal, Sabolič and Tomaževič)

Kapel gets a shot on goal, but that's it.

14:14 HORAK QUADRUPLE SAVE! Ćosić turns it over in dangerous territory for the second time tonight, leading to 4 separate saves from Horak. What a beast!

13:01 Sensational save at the other end from Buitenhuis, recalling Holtby for the Capitals and Hill for the Golden Knights. I love sprawling paddle saves, not so much when it's against us! Bičevskis looks to the heavens and can't believe his rebound chance (created by Sabolič) didn't go in.

6  Big chance after big chance for HCI.

5 HCI hit the bar on a breakaway.

4:05 GOAL HCI - 2-0. Pavlin can't get the puck out of the defensive zone to reset the attackers and an Innsbruck player makes a wonderful pass to split Pavlin and Tomaževič to serve up his teammate right in front of goal.

We have been playing really flatly so far. HCI are playing much better and are deservedly 2-0 up.

2:45 A gorgeous move from the 4th line - Sodja to Pance to Beričič - but he hits the post! 

The thought crosses my mind that we need more from Lavoie. He has not done much to replace Gooch's points thus far. Mahkovec has also been very quiet after his young player of the season award last year. Kapel is getting knocked down a lot, too.

6 seconds left GOAL HCI 3-0. Mašič and Simšič get run around and it goes in off Atwal's skate. Starting to feel like it's game over now, barring a huge 3rd period comeback. As Jeff Reinebold of Sky Sports NFL used to say, the most important player is Mo Mentum - and he is firmly with the other team right now.

P3

16:51 Lavoie hits the post.

16:05 Big chance for Mahkovec gets saved.

HCI's forwards seem to have a lot more pop and finesse than we do tonight, and their defenders seem a lot more robust than ours this evening.

Is there much to learn from this? Probably better to forgive and forget and move on to the next game. We were messy and they were clean, that's it, really.

1:20 PEN ON OLL Lavoie interference (?).

Final thoughts

The team's Instagram account (follow @olimpijahockeyblog, by the way) characterised this as 'we got goalie'd', outshooting Innsbruck 41-27. As I said to a student of mine last week, I would rather you do one high quality page of writing than 7 pages of lower quality writing. We peppered HCI with shots, but very few of them were high in quality or danger. Again, minus Kerbashian, we seem to be forced to the outside for long stretches. For those who aren't as familiar with ice hockey, being forced to the outside results in lower quality shots/chances. You need to be carrying the puck into the zone and setting up shop with bodies on the inside to really start making the most of rebounds on shots, etc.

We certainly had moments of quality, like the 4th line's lovely link up movement that ended with hitting the post, and we did get goalie'd on Bičevskis' close-range shot, but Innsbruck simply looked far more skilful on the puck than we did. These mere moments were up against waves of strong Sharks play (why is Die Haie 'The Sharks' in Germanic languages?! It doesn't seem right to me).

If you'll allow me to rehash something I said in a meeting this week, Pete Carroll of the NFL's Seattle Seahawks often reiterated his aim to 'connect the circle' of offense, defence and special teams. We seemed to be doing all three, but not in a way that was flowing and connected with the same philosophy. This isn't an easy problem to solve, except to just wipe the slate clean and try again anew tonight. 

Just as an addendum, I found it interesting that Buitenhuis said that they have 'good coaching and players who are listening this year'. A very spicy comment. Whatever the case, they certainly look much improved!