Elbo beat me to it but I was going to comment about Musselwhite welt on the size of his head. When i saw it from about 15 rows up it looked like a golfball size.
Great to see him get back out there. He's always been one of the tougher players on Oswego. Great clean check by Clewlow too. Got one of the loudest applauses from the Dome faithful all night.
Everything I heard from last night's game was about Oswego's speed and their odd man rushes. Well, I think Oswego had two odd man rushes all night and they scored on one of them with a pretty play by the Whitelaw/Rodrigues/Moodie line.
Elmira did an EXCELLENT job making adjustments as Oswego got caught up playing the Eagles game instead of the high pace odd man rush game.
The defense did a great job tying up sticks and forcing most of Oswego's shots to the outside. It sounded like Elmira's biggest problem on Friday night was the defense getting caught pinching and then not tying up their man around the net allowing Oswego to put in rebound goals all night.
I was very unimpressed by both teams in the first period as Andrew posted from my text. Maybe part of that was due to the defensive adjustments and both teams trying to feel each other out after kicking the crap out of each other just 24 hours earlier. However, I thought the first was slow and very sloppy for two potential and probably top 15 teams in the country.
It got better in the later stages of the second period and turned into a good game for the last 30 minutes with the intensity and action I'm used to seeing in this rivalry.
EC's top line of Willer/Masters/Vaillancourt generated the majority of the Soaring Eagles chances. They don't have much past that top line right now but that's due to three of their better forwards being out of the lineup for a variety of reasons.
They players that impressed me the most for Oswego were Leimbrock and Singleton. Both are big, strong power forwards that I think we'll have very promising careers in the green and gold if they keep getting better and working at it. They are very tough to move off the puck and they both drive the net hard.
I'm not going to say Lukajic type yet but those two certainly have the potential to be that type of player for Oswego which they DESPERATELY lacked from the class of 2009.
As Remy said, I'm a little worried about the Oswego defense being too slow to keep up with Plattsburgh. They are going to need to throw their bodies around more because they had a hard time at times keeping up with a much slower Elmira team in comparison to a Plattsburgh.
Granted, they lost a lot of players from last year's squad on defense so it will take some time for them to learn the systems and gel but they've better get on that quick before that early November date with the Cardinals at the Stafford.
EC's first goal was all Rusty Masters. Rusty caught Beckwith leaving the near post a little early expecting a centering pass and instead he threw it right on net from no angle and it bounced off Beckwith and into the back of the net. Heads up play by a senior outsmarting a goalie.
I thought both goaltenders played well. Beckwith continued to show he has a great glove hand making a few great saves to rob Elmira of quality scoring chances. Tuttle looked very comfortable between the pipes against a team that put up seven on him the night before. I think you can attribute that to Elmira playing much better team defense in front of him tonight.
I didnt notice Oswego's top line that much. Selleck/Laganiere/Fox were held in check pretty much the whole night and Selleck and Fox both lost their cool at different points in the game that could have resulted in major penalties. Fox slammed his water bottle and stick in the penalty box after taking a high sticking call late in the third and Selleck at the end of the game got tied up with a couple of Elmira players going to Tuttle to celebrate the win. No punches thrown but a lot of shoving.
All in all I think this is pretty much what could have been expected from this weekend results wise. Sounded like both were two close games (I wasnt at Friday's game but results aside, the coaches both said it was a close game) and Saturday's certainly was that could have gone either way.
Decent crowd at the game, I dont know what announced attendance was but I would guessed 1500-1700 which is pretty good nowadays for an Elmira game. I did think the Booster Club lounge was a lot busier so that's a good sign that more fans are starting to come to games again. Many people think there's no beer at the games, it's all about FINDING it.
It may not be as accessible as Utica's is but for $90 you get four tickets to every Elmira home game, access to the "Beer Lounge", and a post game meal during Alumni weekend.
Last thought, did anyone else think the shot totals were way off? I know Elmira has a new SID from year's past and I think he may have been giving credit to anytime a puck left a players stick in the
direction of the goal. Maybe I'm wrong but i thought 43-38 was a little high from what I saw on the ice.
I think going forward Oswego probably had more talent than Elmira but lets not forget the injuries that Elmira is missing. Hopefully both teams will be at 100% come the Pathfinder Bank tourney and we can get a dream rubber match in the Pathfinder championship game.
