Nov 26, 2011 | Steve McGeown | 926 views
Timber Wolves Dig a Deep Penalty-Filled Hole...
Waterloo Timber Wolves traveled to Kitchener Grand River for a game against the newly promoted Kitchener Ranger Blue team. Originally in the first period at least, it looked like our Lost Team post from last week had been answered! We found them! Despite being down by 1 at the end of the first, Timber Wolves had a lot of puck possession and were generating numerous scoring chances. Early in the second, Ryan McGeown threaded a nice head man pass onto the stick of Preston Young for the breakaway tying goal. It looked like Timber Wolves were now in business.
Then the penalty box parade began, and it hurt... a lot.
Timber Wolves would get the next 7 minor penalties and spend the entire second period and the early part of the third short-handed. Kitchener Rangers pounced, scoring 5 power-play goals in a row, taking a 6-1 lead into the early part of the third period. Apart from the goals against, from about the 5 minute mark of the first until 7 minutes left in the third, the Timber Wolves would never roll three full lines in a row. That really changed the flow of the game substantially.
Timber Wolves showing that never give up quality, did fight back in the third. Preston Young scored his second of the game, assisted from David Gruber. Will Yagar then got a short handed marker assisted on the give and go from Ryan McGeown and Max Von Hafner, who managed to chip the puck out to the two forwards to create the two on one shorty situation. Jasper Peterson then managed to make it interesting, making it 6-4 with a go to the net goal, assisted by David Gruber once again. Timber Wolves had a bit of steam with the goalie pulled, but just simply ran out of time. A hole dug too deep to climb out of.
Much was said of the refereeing. It did not seem like an objective person watching that game, you would have guessed that one team earned 7 penalties in a space of time where the other team earned none. Nonetheless, Timber Wolves take note: 6/7 calls were stick infraction calls, and mostly hooking calls. Any referee will tell you the "standard" applied is that if you put your stick anywhere on the opponents body and stop moving your feet, hooking will be the call. The opponent does not even need to get pulled down or fall over. In other words, I hate to say it but most of those stick infraction calls were legitimate against the standard.
Angling into the opponents' body with your feet moving and knocking him off the puck, even if he falls down, no penalty, more effective and... more FUN. Just ask Jacob Butterworth... one of the Timber Wolves most physical and effective stopper defencemen, I believe has only one stick infraction penalty so far this year, and no hooking calls.
Bring on the Ice Wolves...