Claw the Thin Ice: Swarm vs Red Devils//Sunday 5th August [recap]

After such a close finish Saturday night, I went into Sunday’s game with high hopes that the Swarm might finally be able to turn things around. Unfortunately, it was not to be, with a shocker of a third period that saw the Red Devils score five goals to the Swarm’s one.

Final score was 7-1, with a hat-trick for Chris Eaden and single goals to Ryan Chramtchenko and Anton Purver, while Valery Konev picked up a pair for Canterbury. Alex Polozov was the lone goal-scorer for the Swarm, notching a short-handed goal late in the third. This game was not without controversy either, as interim coach Vince Mitalas had to don his gear to take over in net halfway through the third when Mike Coleman was ejected from the game, leaving the Devils bench short a coach once again.

Sunday saw Lukas Birgel back in the line-up again for the Swarm, and Aaron Henderson also in at forward, while Jordan Challis was out with a dislocated shoulder. So far as I could see, the only change for the Red Devils was the addition of Kim Dovlatyan – apologies if I simply misheard the PA on Saturday!

The game began promisingly for the Swarm, with Polozov pouncing on a turnover from the Devils for an early chance, and Botany doing good work once again to retain possession. Ian Wannamaker took a monster of a hit from Hayden Argyle which laid him out, but still managed to get the puck to his teammates rather than turning it over.

The physicality of the previous night was certainly not lacking in the rematch, either, and things got chippy early on. Ryan Chramtchenko got in Josh Hay’s space as Hay was returning to the bench early in the first, shoving him into the boards to great hue and outcry from the Botany end, but no call was forthcoming. The Swarm were certainly giving as good as they got in both the hitting and chirping stakes, although I feel that everyone did rather well to make it just over six minutes into the game before the first penalty was called, especially after the ridiculous tally of PIMs accrued a day earlier.

A minute into Andrew Hay’s minor, Pavel Novak of the Devils was injured in the Botany zone, taking some time to get to his feet again, and obviously bleeding as he finally got to the bench. Not sure if it was his nose or teeth; hopefully nothing major there. There was no call, and play continued.

The Swarm’s penalty difficulties of the Saturday also carried over into the Sunday game, taking four minors in the first, including two in close proximity halfway through the first period that gave the Devils just over a minute and a half of 5-on-3.  The Swarm were once again equal to the task in this PK, making a couple of good clears, and also getting a nice short-handed chance for Michael Attwell as he neatly out-skated the Canterbury defender in the neutral zone.

The Devils did their best to get set up in the Botany zone after that, and applied some consistent pressure, which in combination with their set plays gave them a couple of very good chances. Passing seemed a little sharper from the Devils at first, reminding me of the scarily-good chemistry I’d seen them demonstrate in earlier games against the Admirals.

At 7.52, Novak was given a minor for slashing, and the Swarm just couldn’t seem to find their rhythm on the power-play. The Devils were able to spend far too much of their PK safely in Botany’s own zone; intercepting cross-ice passes to take shots while short-handed and generally tying up the Swarm’s offense well clear of any immediate danger to their own goal.

Novak managed about 40 seconds of freedom after his penalty expired before he was sent right back to the box for interference, and it was déjà vu all over again in every sense, as the Swarm once again gave up a couple of painful turnovers, and spent most of their time on the PP going north-south and trying to retain possession.

With just under a minute remaining, Polozov was assessed a minor penalty, and this one was the chance that the Devils needed to open up the scoring, with one of those momentum-sapping last-thirty-seconds-of-the-period goals that we’ve seen far too often this season. Chramtchenko waltzed right on into the slot and took an easy shot before the Swarm defenders seemed to even realise he was there. Incredibly discouraging to give that one up, especially since up until that point the Swarm’s PK at least had been looking very tight.

The second period began with a couple more minor penalties for the Swarm, although they’d seemed to regain some equilibrium after the break, and once again started out showing some good defensive positioning and blocking a lot of shots. Josh Hay managed to break out of the Swarm’s zone on the second minor and took a shot short-handed, but as he had been on Saturday, Mike Coleman was totally dialled in, and handled it easily.

That chance was rapidly followed by Valery Konev’s first goal of the evening (and the eventual game-winner) at 16.18, as he came in to the Swarm’s zone with speed a minute into that same penalty, shooting gloveside high on a tough shot that I don’t think Nothling had a chance on.

The Swarm initially responded well to being down 2-0, putting in some solid offensive pressure down in the Devils’ end, culminating in Sam Boniface being knocked into Coleman, to the obvious displeasure of all involved.

Four minutes into the period Anton Purver was sent off for tripping, but some extremely good work by Chris Eaden got the Swarm offense tied up in their own zone for about thirty seconds, and really cut into their chances of capitalising on that opportunity.

Shortly thereafter, Maxime Bettez had to be helped from the ice, with what looked like possibly either an ankle or knee injury. He did return to the game, and appeared to be okay then.

Polozov was skating well once again, and the out-of-town visitors I’d invited along with me on Sunday were also impressed, especially by the move he pulled to hop right over Eaden’s stick without losing a step while rushing into the Devils’ zone on one play. The phrase “ha, suck it!” may have been deployed at that point by parties in the stands who shall remain nameless.

The latter half of the second period was where I really started to notice one major problem for the Swarm in the Sunday game, which was that they didn’t seem to be tracking particularly well just who was on the ice with them, and where. Far too many passes got intercepted or turned over because they’d been sent cross-ice near – or essentially onto the tape of, ouch — one of the Devils’ most offensively talented players, with Konev and Eaden in particular just about cherry-picking their way through the neutral zone at times. That kind of sloppy passing was both unlike anything either team had done the night before, and it more-or-less gift-wrapped possession for the Devils in the latter half of the game.

Botany picked up another power-play at 9.21, with James Kirkwood committing one of the most blatant slashing penalties I’ve seen recently, chopping at Dion Guest’s stick as he was returning to the bench.  Unfortunately, this power-play was another nightmare for the Swarm, with too many rushed, inaccurate passes, one of which (it felt almost inevitably) sprung Eaden – lurking near the far blue line as he so often does on the PK – on a short-handed breakaway. This was followed by another good scoring chance for the Devils, at which point I just wrote “CLOWNSHOES!” and underlined it twice, because sheesh, guys.

Polozov was able to get a shot on goal just as the penalty expired, but without nearly enough traffic in front of Coleman to give him much chance of getting it through, and once again the Devils were able to cover up and keep the Swarm off the scoreboard.

The Swarm were able to regain some honour on their own penalty kill a couple of minutes later, with Attwell and Josh Hay getting a couple of short-handed chances of their own, the latter of which resulted in the Swarm being awarded a penalty shot after Hay was pulled down on a good scoring chance. He took a winding path in on goal and tried to outwork Coleman, but couldn’t quite get the puck through, and with 4.33 remaining, the game was still 2-0.

With eight seconds remaining in the second, Richard Idoine picked up two minutes for holding, and the period wound down with a bit of a shoving match between Lyle Idoine and the ever-ubiquitous Eaden behind Botany’s net.

The third period began with what looked like improvement, with Wannamaker getting a short-handed chance, and then Polozov and KC Ball managing to tie up the Devils’ offense in their own zone, putting on an absolute clinic as the Swarm were able to keep the puck in the Devils’ zone for almost 90s of the remaining time on the penalty. Josh Hay also had another good chance short-handed, coming into the zone with speed and going one-on-one against Coleman.

Botany just straight up didn’t seem to be taking enough shots on goal on Sunday – in the third period particularly (and I’d love to see a game sheet for this one to see if that impression is borne out by the numbers), and seemed to get tied up passing too much, as well as not being able to get as much traffic in the crease as they looked to need to shake Coleman, who was just seeing everything. The defensive play from the Swarm in this game didn’t look remotely as bad as the final score would imply, there was just absolutely no goal support, and a couple of careless plays really did cost them big-time.

Three minutes into the period was where the wheels all started to come off noticeably, as Eaden put the puck straight into the net on a shot right off the face-off.  With twelve minutes remaining, it was Purver’s turn, getting a bouncing puck to hop right over Nothling’s pads shortside, and giving the Devils what looked to be an unassailable four goal lead.

At 11.17, all the action was at the far end in front of the Devils’ net. Coleman appeared to throw a punch at Patrick Bishop, who then squared off with Hayden Argyle before more punches were thrown, another Canterbury skater tripped Josh Hay as he started to head towards the melee around the net, and the officials had their hands well full breaking everyone up before heading off to assess the damages. Coleman wound up the only one penalised after all of that, copping five and the game as he was sent to the dressing room with a match penalty, and necessitating Vince Mitalas take his place in net.

The five minute major presented a major opportunity for the Swarm to make back some of their lost ground, especially since they’d managed a stunning performance in just that situation only a month ago in the Trans Tasman Champions league, where they hung three goals during the major on the current AIHL champions Melbourne Ice. Obviously, if you’ve seen the first paragraph of this post you know how this story ends, and even two minutes of 5-on-3 as Chramtchenko was also given two for roughing didn’t give the Swarm any kind of break. Canterbury got stout defense from Argyle, Kirkwood and Novak in particular, and managed to stymie every attempt the Swarm made on their net.

With just about five minutes left, KC Ball got an excellent shot on the net, one that looked like it really would go in, and Mitalas fumbled it, bouncing it high out of his glove a couple of times before he was finally able to freeze it. That moment really did about sum up this game for me: every time the Swarm looked like they could make something happen they had the most miserable puck luck, and every error they made was one the Devils were able to just pounce on.

At 4.56, Eaden scored his second on a wraparound that Nothling just about got his stick on, putting the Devils up to 5-0 and adding another brick in the wall.

Swarm fans did get one bright spot in the last few minutes, as Polozov potted a nifty short-handed goal, taking a great pass from Wannamaker and getting past Mitalas to break the Devils’ shutout.

With about two and a half minutes remaining we had another injury – Matthias Muehl going down awkwardly into the boards behind the Devils’ net. He didn’t appear to return to the game, so hopefully no lasting damage there, either.

With 1.15 remaining in regulation Eaden topped off a stunning weekend’s personal performance with a third goal for the hat-trick, bouncing the puck in over Nothling unassisted, to the great delight of the Devils and their fans.

In the dying seconds of the match, events proceeded about as amiably as you’d expect in a 6-1 blowout, and someone did something (I just didn’t see it) to give the officials due cause to end the game on a penalty shot, awarded to Konev.

There was a brief delay as this was communicated to the Zamboni operators – who were about to come out onto the ice – and then as Konev was just about to skate in to pick up the puck someone near the Swarm’s bench broke the tension by yelling “just do a star jump, Zak!” At that point it really was laugh or cry, so I for one appreciated that one.

Professional as always, however, Nothling ignored that comment and made a staunch effort to out-wait Konev’s slow deke, but was drawn down at the last second and Konev was just able to use his reach and stick-handling ability to curl the puck around past Nothling’s skate and in, giving the Devils the game and a six goal margin.

Painfully, that’s not even the worst blowout I’ve seen this year – by a long shot. Sigh. —  but given this was the Swarm’s final home game for the season it really did feel that extra bit painful to watch. The Swarm do have six games remaining with which they could redeem their stat line a little, but this doesn’t look like it’s going to be going down in the record books as one of their better years. Onwards and upwards, eh, lads? I’m certainly not giving up on them any time soon.

Next week I at least get to milk the opportunity to make lots of terrible jokes about cattle as the Swarm take on the Stampede in their last couple of home games, so I am looking forward to that…

Third Star: James Kirkwood
Second Star: Valery Konev
First Star: Chris Eaden