Game # 1   MMJHL  Final

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Riels 5 vs Raiders 4

FIRST PERIOD

Welcome to the MMJHL final between St. Boniface Riels vs Raiders!  What an awesome first game.  We have seen good offense, great goal tending, solid defensive play and an attentive crowd.  The Riels opened the scoring at 4:31 when Artur Raevskiy redirected a shot from the point from Miguel Gauthier that beat Raiders net minder Mat McIntosh with an assist going to Chris Prejet.  From that point on, it was back and forth hockey.  Riels were skating hard throughout the first frame.  It paid off at 16:08, Mark Sharman finished off a beautiful three-way passing play that beat McIntosh with assists coming from Russell Trudeau and Matt Wilson.  Then at 17:22, Stanislav Izvekov came across the Raiders blue line and snapped a blast in the top shelf to make it 3-0 Riels with assists going to Sean Christensen and Ryan Wilgosh.  It was the speed of the Riels that the Raiders could not handle.  Raiders managed to take advantage of a misplay in the Riels zone with 59 seconds left, when Ryan Seekings found the mesh beating Ryan Brown to cut the Riels lead to 3-1 with assists going to Tanner Magalas and Cole Thalman.  Ryan Brown was very good in the pipes for the Riels.  After the first period, Riels out shot the Raiders 12-11 in the first.

SECOND PERIOD

Raiders had to slow down the Riels somehow in the second period and they did that by a lot of stick work and intimidation to try to get the Riels off their game.  Raiders took advantage of a defensive error in the neutral zone when Ryan Seekings stole the pick that came across the Riels blue line.  He fired a slapshot past Ryan Brown to cut the Riels lead to 3-2 at 8:15 with the assist going to Ryan Sholdice.  Riels top forward line came out on the next shift and scored a beautiful three way passing play finished off by Brian Dies at 9:40 with assists going to Brett Charette and Stanislav Izvekov. That made it 4-2 Riels.  Raiders silenced the crowd seven seconds later with another miscue in the neutral zone lead to Ryan Magalas coming over the Riels blue line and blasted a slapshot past Ryan Brown to cut the lead to 4-3 Riels with assists going to Carson Rybuck and Eli Batt.  That would end the scoring for the second period.  One penalty called in the second period to the Riels and they were able to kill it off.  Raiders out shot the Riels in the second frame 20-11.

THIRD PERIOD
It would be a good third period battle.  Riels were hanging onto that one goal lead until the 7:55 mark when the Riels hard working checking line did what they had to do when Artur Raevskiy scored his second of the night.  A nice three-way passing play from line mates Chris Prejet and Jens Giesbrecht to take back the 2 goal lead 5-3 Riels.  For the next 8 minutes, the first place Riels played a solid defensive game until late in the game at 16:50 mark when Ryan Magalas sent a weak back hand through traffic and beat Riels net minder Ryan Brown to make it a one goal game again with assists going to Jordan Lisowick and Keenan Koswin.

With three minutes to play, the Riels continued to play strong on both ends to try to keep the Raiders from getting any chances to tie the game.  Just over a minute to go, the Raiders pulled their goalie McIntosh for an extra attacker.  They could not get anything going.  Riels had two chances to score in the empty net and did not.  Hard work deep in Raider land with under fifteen seconds left, the Riels would get a stoppage of play when the Raiders players started to push and shove a couple of Riel players.  We don’t know how that happened, but the head ref decided to call a penalty only against the Riels, figure that out.  Now the faceoff would come down to the Riels zone for the last nine seconds.  What an awful call to make.  Raiders almost scored to tie the game because of that.  Bad call by the official.  Sorry, all that hard work late in the game by the Riels was taken away by the official.  Not right!  Riels hung onto win game one of the final series 5-4.  Riels net minder Ryan Brown had a great game stopping 38 shots.  Riels did not have one power play chance all night, but Raiders had three.  They were 0-3.  Raiders out shot the Riels 11-10 in the 3^rd and 42-33 overall.  Game 2 of the series is Friday night at Mosienko arena at 7:30pm.  Game 3 is Sunday night at Southdale CC at 7:30 pm.  Come out and cheer on the Riels.

THREE STARS

     1^st Star  -  Artur Raevskiy

     2^nd Star  -  Ryan Brown

     3^rd Star  -  Stanislav Izvekov