Stockton Thunder Lose Opening Game 6-3 / A Game Recap

GAME RECAP: Ontario 6 - Stockton 3

10/15/2010 11:15 PM - Thunder set back on Opening Night before 6,117 fans
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FINAL STATS: Box score
VIDEO: Highlights and postgame locker room comments
AUDIO: Game highlights

STOCKTON, Calif. - Kellen Briggs made 24 saves and the Ontario Reign led wire-to-wire, capitalizing off five unanswered goals to send the Stockton Thunder to a 6-3 defeat on Opening Night, before 6,117 fans at Stockton Arena on Friday night.

The Thunder, who were led offensively by Fraser Clair with three points (2g-1a), dropped its fourth straight season opening defeat. Ontario's Tim Kraus, Jordan Morrison and rookie Aaron Lewadniuk each chipped in with two points.

Ontario got out to a fast start with three goals in the first ten minutes and took a 3-0 lead after the first period.

Shawn Collymore buried a one-timer from between the circles just 53 seconds into the game, followed by a Jeff Corey goal where he turned the defense inside-out, from off the rush and slipped a backhander through Tyson Sexsmith's five hole for a 2-0 edge with 2:31 into the first period.

Kyle Kraemer's bid from 40 feet out, straightaway, slipped through traffic and boosted the Ontario lead to 3-0 with 10:23 gone.

Ontario padded the lead to 4-0 in the second period on Matt Delahey's drive from the right point for a power-play goal at 1:32. Chaz Johnson then capitalized on a rebound at the left goal post following Sexsmith's stop on Eric Doyle's bouncing shot, boosting the edge to 5-0 at 7:48.

The Thunder finally got on the board with 4:05 left in the second when Clair banged in a rebound from the right circle, after Chris D'Alvise and Jason Pitton failed to connect on a two-on-one, tic-tac-toe style set-up.

The goal sparked a response by the Thunder who used a more physical approach to outshoot Ontario, 24-18 over the final two periods and claim three goals in the final 25 minutes.

Following Lewadniuk's first pro goal at 9:34 of the third period where he cashed in a rebound at the left goal post, Clair cut the deficit to 6-2 following a turnover with 4:09 to play, going to the backhand on Briggs from the right circle.

Jesse Gimblett, who began the third period with a scrap against Ontario's Luke Beaverson at 6:14, collected the first goal of his professional career with 21.4 seconds to play when he capitalized with a screen in front of Briggs and re-directed Clair's wrist shot from the left circle for a power-play goal.

Sexsmith took the loss in net with 24 saves.

NOTES: The Thunder scratched Trevor Hunt (injured reserve), Jordan Foreman (injured reserve) and Scott Howes (healthy) ... Sexsmith stopped a penalty shot by Tim Kraus with 15:28 left in the first period, closing the five-hole on Kraus' wrist shot ... the Thunder were outshot, 30-27 by Ontario but had a 13-8 shots edge in the third period ... the Thunder went 1-for-3 on the power-play ... Stockton's last season opening win was in 2006-07, when they opened on the road with a 6-1 victory over Bakersfield.

Stockton and Ontario will play in a rematch tomorrow at Stockton Arena, beginning at 7:30 p.m. (1280 KWSX/StocktonThunder.com).

A two-time recipient of the ECHL "Award of Excellence," Thunder was voted "Best Local Sports Team" by readers of the San Joaquin Magazine, led the ECHL in attendance for four consecutive seasons and drew over 200,000 fans for the fifth consecutive season in 2009-10. Season Tickets, mini-plans and individual tickets for 2010-11 are on sale now. For more information about tickets, merchandise, or other inquiries contact the Stockton Thunder offices at (209) 373-1500 or visit http://www.stocktonthunder.com/

-Reprinted at OilersJambalaya.com with permission from the Stockton Thunder-

Silent Thunder

The day all Thunder hockey fans waited for-opening night, the first day of ECHL's season, was finally here. And game one, versus the Ontario Reign, was just plain ugly. The final score: 6-3. I'm not really going to do a game recap-you can look on the Stockton Thunder website for that, but I would like to do a fans-eye view on what happened out there.

We were treated to a new team video and music on the Jumbotron and a nice opening ceremony introducing each Thunder team member skating out with a member of the Stockton Colts Hockey team. Big guy/little guy skating out together-really sweet. Stockton Arena was pretty full-6000+ people. If you've been to a few hockey games, you know the routine. After the team introduction, the National Anthem is sung, there's a ceremonial puck drop, then the real puck drop.

And then the game. After getting the crowd loud and rowdy, it was really deflating when Ontario scored against Stockton's goalie Tyson Sexsmith less than a minute into the first period. I wasn't really worried at that point. Nerves, I told myself, opening night jitters. But not too long after that goal, Ontario was up 2-0.

What was wrong? Really poor passing, which results in turnovers. And when your team turns the puck over then can't get it out of their defensive zone, eventually that puck will end up in your net. The puck passing was sloppy because the players seemed out of sync with each other. The Thunder kept shooting wide of the net. Didn't try hard enough to keep the puck in when they'd get it into the offensive zone. The powerplay and penalty kill equally reeked. And the shots on goal...one could probably ask, what shots on goal? If I remember correctly, during the opening period the SOG were Thunder-3, Ontario-12. The score after first period? Thunder-0, Ontario 3.

Not everything was terrible, though. In second period, the crowd finally got to stand up, scream and cheer when Thunder's Fraser Clair, with assists from Chris D'Alvise and Jason Pitton, got the puck past Reign goalie Kellen Briggs.

Fraser Clair would get on the score sheet for the next two goals, he scored unassisted in the third period, and had a helper along with J. Pitton on Jesse Gimblett's goal scored in the final minute of the game on a powerplay.

It was a frustrating game to watch. There was no hustle or desperation until the last half of the third period. The Thunder started to get clicking a little, by battling for loose pucks, finally jumping on rebounds, but by then the damage had been done.

Although he didn't seem as big in net or as confident as I've seen him in the preseason games, I can't pin a large part of the loss on Thunder goalie Sexsmith. He did have a few "softies" go in, but on the most part, there was no defense helping him out.

The second game of the season is tomorrow night, also against the Ontario Reign. Getting this stinker of a match out of the way, one can only hope the team learned a little of what not to do. I'm looking forward to a much better outing tomorrow night. In every match-up there can only be one winner, and I hope to see the Thunder rule the arena on Saturday.

For photos from the game please visit: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=106641&id=1367406758&l=250c34f3f8

OKC Barons vs Houston Aeros / A LIVE TweetCast

Welcome to the LIVE TweetCast of the Oklahoma City Barons vs the Houston Aeros. Follow along as Scott (@OilFieldHockey) and Eric (@AHLBarons) tweet the game.

THE GAME PREVIEW IS HERE

Game Summary Sheet CLICK HERE

Listen LIVE Here

GAME TIME: 6:05pm MDT

OKC Barons Game 3 Preview: vs. Houston, Take Two

Away: Houston Aeros (1-0-0) Last Game: 6-1 win vs. OKC
Home: Oklahoma City Barons( 0-2-0) Last Game: 2-1 loss vs. Chicago

Quick news and notes

-The Barons will play their first game after their inaugural weekend where they dropped both games.
-In the last meeting, the Aeros beat the Barons last Saturday 6-1 in the Barons inaugural game.
-Hartikainen has scored the only two Barons goals this season.
-Giroux leads the team in PIM with 16 minutes.
-The Barons are 0/15 on the PP and 12/14 on the PK.
-Projected Lines:

Giroux-Moran-McDonald
Reddox-O’Marra-Omark
Hartikainen-Kytnar-Ondrus
Cornet-Vande Velde-Marquardt
Goalie: Not positive, but I'm thinking Pitton will get the nod. He was getting a bit more work in practice on Thursday.

Players to watch:
OKC: Hartikainen, for obvious reasons. Remains to be seen if the first line is going to work well together.
HOU: Matt Hackett, if he starts in goal. Stopped 30 of 31 OKC shots last weekend. Petr Kalus(23) and Joel Broda(56) each scored twice last weekend.

After the blowout on Saturday, Todd Nelson adjusted the lines a little bit which seemed to help some, as the Barons looked a bit more in sync vs. Chicago. After a week of practice, hopefully things will turn out a lot better than last weekend’s game.

Puck drops at 7:05. You can listen to the game on 96.1 KXY or watch the game on AHL Live. Be sure to follow myself (@AHLBarons) and Scott (@OilFieldHockey) as we tweet from the game.

-Written by Eric Rodgers-

Oilers Get Lost In The Wild / A Beers And Jeers Game Recap

BEERS & JEERS GAME RECAP

Welcome to another fine Edmonton Oilers Beers & Jeers Game Recap.

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FINAL SCORE

EDMONTON OILERS - 2

MINNESOTA WILD - 4

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TONIGHT'S STARTING LINES

Penner/Gagner/Hemsky
Hall/Horcoff/Eberle
Paajarvi/Cogliano/Brule
Jones/Fraser/Stortini

Whitney/Foster
Smid/Gilbert
Peckham/Vandermeer

Khabibulin
Deslauriers

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VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS



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PAQ TWINN'S GAME SUMMARY

1ST PERIOD

- This period started off slow, a feeling out process for sure. Oilers had 4 PP opportunities but couldn't really get anything going. Only the 4th line got anything positive going with their crashing and banging. The other 3 units have struggled as a collective but are a bounce away from doing something constructive. Oilers out shot the Wild 10-5.

2ND PERIOD

- The Oilers started playing an uptempo style and it worked as Penner and Gilbert both scored to make 2-1 for the good guys. After getting into some penalty trouble the Wild scored 2 power play goals late in the period. The Wild out shot the Oilers 11-6.

3RD PERIOD

- The Wild continued to out play the Oilers. Hemsky was a force tonight and was Khabibulin for the most part. Everyone else had their moments but tonight was a growing pain game. They're going to happen, this is a young team after all. They still have much to learn.

Next up is BOA #2 as the Oilers take on the Flames in Calgary on HNIC. Until then, GOILERS!!!

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BEERS & JEERS PLAYER GRADES

The Cult of Hockey Grading System:
10 perfect game,  9 extraordinary,  8 great,  7 good,  6 above average,
5 average,  4 below average,  3 poor,  2 terrible,  1 deserves to be in minors.

#2 JAMES VANDERMEER - (4) JEERS Brutal. He was burned on the Wild's first goal and he seemed to never find his stride. He had the games Bad Timing Penalty (see below).

#4 TAYLOR HALL - (4) I'm sure the Hall fans rejoiced when he picked up a +1. I didn't. You can tell he's not really ready. He tried a few moves that would have thrilled the crowd in juniors (as I write this Tom Renney is saying the same thing. lol), but that don't fly in the NHL. He is smart. He goes to the right area's, but he needs to be more aggressive. Time will help him. One shot isn't very good and snipers, need to shoot.

#5 LADISLAV SMID - (7) BEERS Smid was a workhorse tonight. He played well with Gilbert. He was one of the best defencemen tonight for the Oilers. While he's not the offensive guy on the line, he made 3 big hits.

#6 RYAN WHITNEY - (6) He played pretty good but made mistakes. Tough gig for Whitney, but he seems up for the task. He played a team high 28:44. That's almost half a game!

#10 SHAWN HORCOFF - (6) Horcoff was not bad. He took a lot of faceoffs and was 38% effective. He assisted on the Tom Gilbert goal and he keeps the points total moving. He had 2 shots, 2 takeaways and 1 hit.

#13 ANDREW COGLIANO - (4) Why in the hell Renney is still rolling with Cogs at center is mind blowing. He stinks at it. Plain and simple. Put his speedy legs on the wing and watch him get breakaways. He can't win faceoffs and this is getting painful to watch. Sure, a lot of the faceoff wins are because the wingers get to the puck quick (and the Oilers as a whole suck at it), but once in a while you need to win a clean one. He was 1/6 for 14%. Brule went 4/1 for 80%. You tell me who should be the center?

#14 JORDAN EBERLE - (6) Hard to not like him. He's always in the right spots and is smart like Hall. A few times he tried to shield the puck and much like Hall, that's hard to do when your not in juniors. He had 2 shots and a hit. On a side note: I liked his PK positioning. He's going to be a good PK guy down the road.

#16 COLIN FRASER - (5) He was the best Oilers 4th liner tonight. But that's not saying much. He had 2 shots and mixed it up a few times, but an energy line is supposed to create energy. I didn't feel that tonight from that line, especialy when the team needed it. He did do well on faceoffs as he was 7/5 for 58%. That's a good sign.

#22 JF JACQUES - (0) DNP Injured

#26 KURTIS FOSTER - (5) He was OK. He had 4 shots on goal and took two penalties. It must have been strange/hard for him coming back to Minnesota, so I'll go easy on him tonight. He, along with Whitney played against the good lines tonight. But only 1 hit?

#27 DUSTIN PENNER - (6) He scores!!! The flying fridge was at it again. He took 4 shots and made some nice heads up plays. He still looks slow to me. No spring in his step. Maybe this goal motivates him to get it going.

#28 RYAN JONES - (4) He did a whole lot of nothing. 1 hit? On the crash and bang'em line? Oy! At times in the 1st period, I really did notice him buzzing around, but if he's going to make an impact, you have to at least crash and bang... all game.

#33 STEVE MACINTYRE - (0) DNP (Healthy scratch)

#35 NIKOLAI KHABIBULIN - (8) BEERS He seems to be wearing the same helmet as last year. He was great when he was playing then, just like he's doing now. He kept the Oilers in this game, but the team let him down. We trashed and joked about Khabi all summer long. Vodka jokes were common like knock knock jokes are. But the man is solid. He's proving all us doubters wrong.

#38 JEFF DESLAURIERS - (0) BACKUP DNP

#40 DEVAN DUBNYK - (0) DNP (Healthy scratch)


#43 JASON STRUDWICK - (0) DNP (Healthy scratch)

#46 ZACK STORTINI - (3) JEERS Wow! He played a whopping 5:16 and made zero impact on this game. OK, I lied. He had 1 shot and it was a scoring chance. Other than that, sweet fu*k all! No hits, no blocked shots, no nothing. Very disappointing tonight.

#49 THEO PECKHAM - (4) The train wreck that was... that sums up Peckham. Sort of. Other than his big hit, and it was a good, hard hit, Peckham was not good. Not a good fit with Vandermeer tonight. Is it too late to get Richard Petiot back up here?

#67 GILBERT BRULE - (4) Brule looked like he was busting his hump out there, but he was falling and missing easy passes. He does take a good faceoff draw (4/1 for 80%). Maybe he should be moved to center? Try it Renney!!!

#77 TOM GILBERT - (7) BEERS I was mad at him at the beginning of the game because he's so timid and not really wanting to get physical. But he can move the puck well and that helps for his lack of being mean. He had 3 shots to go with his goal and he also had 2 blocked shots. He had something like 24 friends and family at the game so it was good he at least scored for them.

#83 ALES HEMSKY - (7) He created a ton of chances tonight. Which is cool, because if you look at his pass to Penner, it's a text book saucer pass. Hemsky picks up an assist but only takes 1 shot and misses the net. How can a snipe like Hemsky not shoot? He needs to step it up with more than just fancy passes.

#89 SAM GAGNER - (6) He's making strides to become a #1 center. His down low work is improving. Just like everyone else, he needs more than just 2 shots on a stat sheet. Oh right, he picked up his 3rd assist of the season.

#91 MAGNUS PAAJARVI - (5) Cogliano and Brule don't compliment him at all. It's a strange mix. I'd like to see Paajarvi swap with Penner. Give him a chance to play with his new road trip roommate, Ales Hemsky. In 15:04 of ice time, he only managed 2 shots. His bright spot, he drew two penalties. His speed caused the Wild to have problems with him.

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EVENT SUMMARY

GAME SUMMARY

mc79hockey Scoring Chances

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BAD TIMING PENALTY (what is a Bad Timing Penalty?)

Jim Vandermeer - Paajarvi takes a penalty and the Wild score to tie it up at two. 6 seconds after that PP goal was scored, Vandermeer takes a interference penalty to give the Wild more momentum and yet another power play. Less than a minute into this PP, the Wild score again to go ahead 3-2. That was literally game over at that point for the Oilers.

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POST GAME VIDEO

coming soon

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Cult Of Hockey - Edmonton Journal

-Written by Smokin' Ray-