Eagles vs. Gryphons - an epic battle, but who would you choose to win?
A flurry of powerplays were on tap for Guelph to start this game, as Burlington struggled to contain the Gryphons, and paid the price of their ensuing malfeasance by spending a lot of time in the box. The third PP saw Noah pulling the puck in to him on the Burlington blueline, passing it in front to Ty, who popped it over to Olin. Olin buried it for the 1-0 Guelph lead. There were so many powerplays that Guelph seemed to just carry the flow of play into a penalty kill, and dominated it as well, so much so that I was confused when Burlington iced the puck and the faceoff came back to the Burlington end… I had to figure out that it wasn’t their PK. While the Gryphons kept the bulk of play towards the Burlington end, the Eagles did have a flurry of shots at the end of the period that Parker expertly fended off. 1-0 Guelph at the end of 1.
The second and third mostly followed the same trends as the first (a few less penalties), with Guelph owning most of the possession towards and in the Eagles’ end. Gareth and Nolan S did their best to turn pucks back before centre ice, with Nolan snagging and passing them back up-ice, while Gareth played the dump and chase-your-own puck game, harassing the Eagles defenders and keeper time and again. In the third, Will had a beauty steal to keep the puck inside the Eagles blueline, passed it over to Griffin, who got a great shot off, but the keeper just snapped it up. Cam was next up with a great play at the Eagles blue line to keep it in, fought through 3 Eagles to get to the net, where the keeper just barely deflected it behind, as Seba fought off a few Eagles trying to crush him in the ensuing scrum behind the net.
Malin, Max and Nolan B were also testing the Eagles keeper with blueline blasts to no avail - he was up to stopping everything, keeping the score at 1-0, late through the game. Evan scooted back to catch an Eagle who was trying to end Parker’s shutout, reaching him and smashing the puck away just as he was about to shoot. Max put on a masterclass of reading the play coming back towards Parker, and was stopping anything getting beyond about a foot inside the Gryphons blueline, and turning it back up ice onto the tape of a Gryphon, including the actual Griffin, who battled hard to get it up into the Eagles corner and keep it there, killing off good time, then he got a pass off to Gareth, who just got stoned by the keeper again. David and Noah killed off a good chunk of time too, fighting tooth and nail, and keeping the puck from getting back inside Guelph’s blueline just before Jason, after turning puck after puck up ice himself, got the good vision of a pass out of our back-end (can’t remember who, sorry), and found the empty net, putting his left wing shot dead centre to give the Gryphons that breathing space they’d been fighting so hard for throughout the game. 2-0. Like Friday, that “0” is important, especially as the Eagles, with 6 men on, shelled Parker with chances in the last 2 minutes; with Sergio cheering from the bench and Benny and Jesse off-ice, he bested them all, helping to earn the Gryphons the shutout and along with the number 1 seed in the division. We're all proud of our U15A Guelph Gryphons!
Thanks to Malin and Griffin for the exceptional call-up work.
-PL