MK beaten by poor 1^st period display

 

 

The fixture secretary had managed to contrive us the perfect first way fixture, last season's champions, Guildford. Add to that we will have Macauley missing as he is serving his one match ban. Still never mind we were the only team to take a point off them last season so who knows?

 

Well we got our answer quite quickly, 28 seconds actually when Will was called for checking from behind, 2 +10, slightly dubiously I might add. It took Guildford less than 30 seconds to open their account, 0-1 on 54 seconds. Guildford were going for the kill early on but Emma and Jonathan L made good clearances from D. From one clearance Matt broke away but saw his shot saved. Moments later Jack cleared up ice to Matthew again, he turned and beat two men but again his shot was saved. It was looking more promising though, an attack was defended by Guildford but Thomas kept the puck in the blue zone finding Ryan but when the puck was lost a challenge by Ryan, sitting on the ice was called for checking!!! In less than a minute Guildford had added to the score, 0-2, 4 minutes gone. The response was quick though and another lovely surge up ice by Matt was finished off by Luc 1-2. Storm upped the tempo and went in search of the equalizer, Emma broke free and slipped the puck to Douglas who tried to make inroads but was blocked. Guildford then picked up their own penalty and now Storm were really up for it. Thomas picked up the puck on the blue line beat a defender and let fly but the shot was saved. Matt hit a shot that cleared the bar and Callum made two great interceptions to keep MK on the attack. Just as the PowerPlay was coming to a close though, Guildford broke free and netted number 3 shorthanded. Connor cleared Guildford's next attack, Keiran pick it up and found Emma who in turn found Luc. Luc cut inside but his shot was saved, Guildford broke away but looked offside, no call was made and number 4 was notched. Will was back now and he hit a shot wide before a lovely shot gave Jordan no chance, 1-5 and 40 seconds later it was 1-6, this time with several parents screaming for the offside. As the period came to a close Matt broke away, went on a solo run and finished with a superb second for MK, 2-6.

 

At the start of the second MK changed their Netminder as Jordan clearly looked like he was carrying an injury. Jonathan M took over in the pipes and was kept fairly quiet as MK went in search of a reasonable score. Matt passed to Will and Will hit one wide, Ryan broke free beat two but was then stopped and Will saw another shot turned away. Matt had a shot saved before turning provider to Will who buried it this time 3-6. Callum got in the act with a shot that was saved before Guildford woke up and Jonathan M made two good saves. Guildford then did get number 7 and tried quickly for number 8 but a combination of Thomas and Jack cleared the zone. Will hit his second of the day to make it 4-7 but in less than two minutes it was 4-8. Another Guildford penalty gave us some hope but a lovely one-two between Ryan and Luc was interrupted as the Netminder came out to steal. A shot by Douglas was also saved. Late on Ryan was called for checking but we survived the shorthanded spell, Jonathan M saved a couple and we even managed a couple of shots of our own, through Douglas and Will. When Will was added to the bin for checking (Ryan had fortunately returned) we were shorthanded for the remainder of the game but Matthew came up trumps and hit a great goal to make the final score 5-8.

 

The coach was disappointed as he thought we could have won this one but for a sloppy first period. Still we have them again in a fortnight so let's see what we can do then.

 

Game Stats

 

00:54 0-1 PP
04:56 0-2 PP
05:14 1-2 Luc from Matthew
09:21 1-3
12:45 1-4
14:51 1-5
15:36 1-6
18:24 2-6 Matthew unassisted
25:11 3-6 Will from Matthew
29:11 3-7
29:55 4-7 Will unassisted
31:46 4-8
39:37 5-8 Matthew unassisted