OLIMPIJA 5 - 0 FEHERVAR
DRAGONS REAWAKEN
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Lineup changes
None - and yet, look at the difference!
Stars of the game
* Lukáš Horák (20/20, SO) - a shutout gets you first star. Really happy for him to get one.
** Marcel Mahkovec (2G, 1A) - Marcel, this is what I'm talking about!! Ruthless finishing, showing off his true quality... Keep it coming!
*** Alex Petan (3A) - this was the first time in a while that the original 2nd line were humming and Petan was at the heart of it. He had been quiet for a while after flashing at the start of the season, so I'm glad we're seeing the real him again. As seen today, his impact can be massive in the build-up to game-changing moments when he's firing on all cylinders.
Goals
P1
OLL TBTG - Mahkovec with the Teddy Bear Toss goal, from Petan and Polei! Polei enters the zone with speed and shoots for a rebound from a wide angle. The goalie saves, Petan backhands it back at the goalie and Mahkovec is there for the 2nd rebound, whipping it through the goalie's legs. AVS rudely challenged the Teddy Bear Toss goal, thankfully failing and giving us another PP in the process.
OLL - Mahkovec from Simšič and Crnović. Crnović shoots from the blue line and the puck squirts out wide. Simšič finds it and lasers a pass across the net-front to Mahkovec at the back post. What a pass! Part of our recent issues was shooting from long-range and then not pouncing on the rebounds and using them. Today, we certainly are doing that!
P2
OLL - Meyer from Drozg and Boychuk. Drozg finds Meyer high in the OZ for a one-timer that flies in.
OLL - Polei from Petan and Mahkovec. Petan enters the zone with speed down the right side and waits...and waits...and waits... until he hits Polei with perfect timing for a deflection goal in the middle. Great work from 19 and 9.
P3
OLL - Simšič from Beričič and Brennan. TJ shoots from a wide angle and Beričič gets something on it from in close. The puck rebounds strongly off the goalie's pads, straight into 12 in a central slot position, who fires home. (EDIT: I had got it in my notes that Meyer scored this, thanks to ED for the correction!)
How did this happen?!
It's easy to get into this unhelpful cycle of 'it's over/we're back' - pumping the breaks on the hype train after one really good game is probably sensible. However, it is a huge step in the right direction to be playing as dominantly as we were earlier this season, especially after a string of poor losses and against the 7th place team with which we will be competing for an auto-playoff spot (and one which we have previously struggled to break down).
How did this happen? Well, we played with far more confidence, touch and poise than in recent games. We flowed back into the waves of offensive pressure and puck possession that characterised our early season surge up the standings. We used our longer-range shots to set up chances in the central, dangerous areas that I spoke about. Importantly, we conceded fewer penalties (MacWilliam was treated rather unfairly, I felt). With the help of Mahkovec's brace in the first period as an example, we finished chances decisively in a way that hasn't happened for a while. Granted, Reijola was not in net this time, our usual nemesis, but we deserved the goals we scored (I'm not a big believer in the accuracy of Expected Goals, but our xG was 3.20 to AVS's 0.94, which roughly tracks with how the game went in reality).
It's quite hard to see (so I added in a scribbled goal and GK), but basically we did a far better job of shooting from central positions closer to the net, which enhances your chances of scoring directly or via rebound, when compared to shots from further away and wider out.
Counting shots is a limited means of showing control of the game, but the shot differential here was insane. Fehervar had 20 shots in the entire game - we had 25 in the first period!
KAC are top and once more showing themselves to be a formidable team, so it's no big deal if we end up on the losing side. I think we can go in with nothing to lose, really, with our main goal simply to try to continue playing our style of hockey - as we did so well today - to gain a greater consistency into the final third of the regular season. If we go WLWLWL again but keep playing in Coach Cooper's style throughout, that's fine. The worrying thing would be to keep losing and finding that secret sauce, as seems to have happened in this mid-season segment.
Live look in at CC and AT the night before we rediscover our secret formula?!
https://tenor.com/en-GB/view/spongebob-krabby-patty-formula-ravioli-gif-4943915
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