What is there to say about the game last night at the Gatorade Garden City Complex? That was just fantastic hockey. After falling in game 2 where Visentin knew he had a poor performance. He came out focused and determined and with his eye on the prize. The so called ‘contract hangover’ didn’t take effect in game 1 in Niagara but got to him in Oshawa Saturday night. On Monday. He was over it. He stood tall and despite the almost late collapse, which Visentin could not be faulted for, fought and got his boys the win. The Icedogs had a shutout and complete domination of the Generals until a big cluster F of events gave Andy Andreoff a penalty shot against Mark Visentin. OSH Christian Thomas skates the puck down low with Miles Doan on him, D-Hammer comes out and pancakes the young Thomas. That draws Sabourin to Dougie, who takes a shove or two, and in comes NIA Wilson to defend the younger Hamilton. Thomas gets up and skates to the other end of the ice as the play is continuing. Andy Andreoff comes into the play and the group of players decide to get back into the game since it was still going on. Andreoff floats oppose to getting fully into the play which results in the Gens outlet pass to him and he is all alone against visentin and here comes Graham with a hook and Andreoff gets the shot off. Refs arm in the Air, and Sabourin levels Graham into the boards just after the whistle and before he signals penalty shot for Andy Andreoff. Sabourin gets 2 for roughing and Andreoff crawls to the net, taking visentin side to side to side to side before he just slips it into the back of the net. At that point it was 4-1 for the Dogs and a Phil Collins song title was about to happen…. “I can feel it coming in the air tonight….” I thought it was a good reference. And even though the Gens made it close bringing it to 4-3 with 43 seconds to go… they never came back from the 4 goal first period that Niagara had.
Peter DiSalvo showed why the Generals got him at the deadline. They need this type of goaltending to keep the team in there. There was some people calling him an unreal goaltender and although I will disagree with that particular word to describe him. Even down by a couple goals he stood on his head and on this night he was the better goalie. Oshawa was lead by two players who got equal amount of attention by the fans… well maybe. I am reminded of the great Simpsons quote. ‘were they yelling boo? Or boourns?” Even though he was on the ice with BOOOOOOOOOOOOONE Jenner you kept hearing the boo’s for Lucas Lessio. Which shows the OHL fans are educated because their first round pick was ‘wasted’ on him as he did not want to report to NIA and thus was traded to OSH where he would sign. Tomato tomatoe. Does it matter? Sure because it creates a great atmosphere. Jenner and Lessio were by far the best Generals of the game. Focused. Driven. Energy. Passion. I even commented about how Jenner wanted to play. After a whistle with stuff happening infront of the net, he went straight to the faceoff dot. Stick down waiting for the faceoff. Just focused and that is what you wanted. A lot of Oshawa players were off kiltered by the IceDogs and that hurt Oshawa early on. But the momentum swung in their favour and it was on. In the end the 2-1 series lead is what Niagara walked away with as Visentin ended the game stopping 46 of 49 on the night. while his counter part Peter DiSalvo who let in 3 goals on the first 7 shots… settled down to stop 28 of 32 on the night. it could have been worse if not for DiSalvo… but now a thought is in my head. If Zador can do this with the same type of team in Owen Sound… then what was his beef while he was in OSH? But that is another topic. To all who took in the game, the 3145 in attendance and to all those after the game and to all the tweeps who kept it interesting all night long. Thanks for the night and I can not wait for game 4 on Wednesday.
you don't no much about hockey i no that for a fact.