OLIMPIJA 2 - 4 VILLACH
VILLACH OUTDUEL US IN FINAL HOME GAME
PINBALL WIZARD MAHKOVEC CAN'T STOP EAGLES
Lineup changes
Still no Bonino, out with illness. Mehle also remains absent, so Vodlan plays again. Crnović and Lalonde (making his rapid debut) are in for Bohinc and Hebar. Lalonde is on the 2nd pair with Gregorc. Ćosić and Ege are the 3rd pair.
Highlights
- Shawn Lalonde made a good impression in his debut, with an assist, multiple shots on goal and a bone-crushing hit on an attempted VSV power-move. Welcome, sir - keep the hits, shots and points coming!
- Scoring 2 PPGs is always nice - especially Mahkovec's pinball moment, which managed to deflect off both VSV defenders and in.
- It was great to see Kapel finally extinguish his post-hitting demons and score a goal tonight.
- My friend and I found it highly amusing that VSV's Hancock was immediately called for an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty after scoring. It looked like he had some choice words for the referee, which was funny because up till that point they were strongly favouring VSV.
- Finally getting awarded three P2 powerplays after a barren and downright unfair P1
Lowlights
- I felt for Horak when we conceded in the final second of the game on a 5 on 3 penalty kill. He was not happy.
- Prior to the above, Žiga Pavlin's trip with 2:07 to go killed our chances at chasing an equaliser (it was 2-3 at the time). Accidental, but brutal. Pavlin has a long reach, but he has been getting called for trips a lot this season.
- Talking of trips, the aforementioned P1 saw at least two clear missed tripping calls on Villach that helped put us in a difficult situation from which we were ultimately unable to extricate ourselves.
- A Karhula-esque too many men call with 27s remaining, leading to the last-second conceded PPG.
Weird Stat
Kapel missed a wide open back door chance at the exact minute and second (P1 18:45) that he hit the post in the previous game. A slightly insane coincidence, but at least he's consistent!
Stats
You can see VSV's blue wall of chances concentrated on the right hand side of this shot chart. By contrast, our chances in yellow are much more diffuse. In essence, this explains the result and score. More concentrated shots closer to the net will leave you with a weightier scoresheet than less concentrated shots from further away.
Shots-saves at even strength:
P1 - 12-12 (VSV PPG)
P2 - 6-14 (OLL PPG PPG, VSV G)
P3 - 3-8 (VSV G, PPG)
Not a flattering statistical showing for us, even if our two PPGs were very welcome and long overdue.
PP: 2/4 An uncharacteristically high 50% (affected by a one-in-a-million Mahkovec double deflection).
PK: 2/3 for an uncharacteristically low 66% (affected by a fluke-y last second 5 on 3 goal).
Shooting %: 2/26 for 7.7. Lower and lower.
Save %: 37/41 for 0.902. A quality start despite the high goals allowed.
Main takeaways
I'm not going to read too much into this one (another uncharacteristic element to this game). We suffered from some blatant missed calls in P1 and appeared as if we had expended much of our energy on that fantastic win over BWL on Friday. We were right there with Villach until the Pavlin trip with 2:07 left: I fancied our chances to tie it up. I believe with more rest and more even officiating we would beat Villach - even without Bonino as our key cog on the 2nd line.
Lalonde looked very handy out there; I look forward to seeing more of him over the coming days and (hopefully) weeks. Based off a single viewing, I would rather have him signed for next season than bring Atwal back (no offense, Arvin - and best wishes for a speedy recovery! (He has never read a single article anyway, lol)).
Two more games to go - let's strike a balance between ensuring we stay healthy and retaining a rhythm/confidence in our game as we head into the pre-playoffs.
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