Scrimmage results - Day 4 of training camp

Posted Sep 16, 2007 by Erik Erlendsson

Updated Sep 16, 2007 at 11:37 AM

What, no shootout? The fans felt there should have been one Sunday morning after the two teams again ended in a 1-1 tie in the second day of scrimmages at the Ice Sports Forum in Brandon.

The game was scoreless for a good portion of the game, including the entire first half of the game. But Nick Tarnasky broke things open when he beat Johan Holmqvist in tight on a pass from Andre Roy for Team Black. It was an easy tap-in for Tarnaski about eight minutes into the second half. The clock for the second half was set at 25 minutes as opposed to 20 minutes for the first half, and that came into play as Michel Ouellet, doing his best Willis Reed impersonation, scored the tying goal with 1:07 left in the game. Ouellet briefly left the ice to talk to team trainer Tom Mulligan at one point. Ouellet scored on a rebound after a nice play from Brad Richards, who held the puck along the wall, turned his back to shield the puck along the blue line and fired a shot from the top of the slot that Karri Ramo made the save on, but Ouellet was open for the rebound. After the buzzer went off, the fans were chanting “shootout, shootout’’ but to no avail. They have to settle a tied game at some point, don’t they?

Not much change to speak of in terms of line combos, other than Andreas Karlsson playing left with on the line with Richards and Ouellet while Jan Hlavac played with Chris Gratton and Jason Ward.

Some highlights:

*Vinny Prospal had a strong forecheck on Doug Janik early in the game, keeping the puck in deep on a good shift early in the game.

* Dan Boyle laid out Ouellet in the crease during a scramble

* Dan Jancevski probably didn’t help himself out on one play where he passed the puck through the crease to the opposite side of the net to find Richards

* David Schneider made a good play to strip Blair Jones of the puck, then made a quick outlet pass up to the opposite blue line that led to a scoring chance. Those kind of plays really get noticed by the decision-makers.

* Schneider made another good play when he lifted the stick of Andreas Karlsson as he skated through the slot area

* Filip Kuba must have taken exception to something Karl Stewart did as Kuba was on top of Stewart in the circle at one point giving him a few shots across his arm. Kuba eventually got up with a broken stick.

Observations

Thought both Marc Denis and Karri Ramo played great. Denis was credited with 17 saves on 17 shots while Ramo was 16-for-17. Johan Holmqvist stopped seven of eight. Through two games, Holmqvist has a 2.35 goals against and .889 save percentage, Ramo is at 1.07 goals against and .970 save percentage and Denis is 0.97 with .963 save percentage.

Denis in particular had a handful of really good saves - he stopped Lecavalier on a 2-on-1 30 seconds into the game; a good shoulder save on a Dan Boyle shot through traffic, a pad save on Lecavalier who fired a shot from between the circles; a sliding stop on Andre Roy in the crease after a nifty pass from Tarnasky; a good stop on a Marty St. Louis breakaway and a good solid stick-poke on Roy who was in close late in the game to keep the score 1-0.

Ramo again just looks solid and big in net - and confident. He stopped Jancevski on a 3-on-1 and had a good glove save on a Doug Janik.

I felt the line of Nick Tarnasky-Craig MacDonald-Andre Roy played another good game. They had a couple of really good scoring chances - including Tarnasky’s goal - and were good on the forecheck.