Dogs vs. Amerks

[Gas]

A very solid effort tonight from the entire team. Everybody played well.

There appears to be a new offense line in Hamilton with Kostitsyn, Grabovski and Milroy. The Dunkster can keep up with these speedy fellas and there's almost always a scoring chance when they are out there.

The penalty killing has been fantastic. The three main units featuring Chipchurra, Milroy, Lapierre, Ferland, Baines and D'Agostini (tonight's Maxim Lapierre award winner for Hardest Working Bulldog) have been amazing. The team has improved greatly on getting the puck out of the zone.

Corey Locke was given a substantial boost in ice time tonight and he responded well with 2 goals and an assist and the second star. As much as it pains me to say it he played a good game. I just love booing the guy.

The defence clicked well as a unit. Ryan O'Byrne watched the tapes of Komisarek's perfromance against the Sabres last night and played outstanding. This kid has got the goods. J.P. Cote had an excellent game and as hard as it is to believe Patrick Traverse didn't screw up.

What can I say about Jaroslav Halak? After tonight, according to the post game show, Halak should be the AHL leader in shutouts, save percentage and goals against average. He earned the first star, but was awarded the third star. He made some outstanding saves.

Mikhail Grabovski. First star of the game. Scored his fourth goal of the year on an unbelievable solo effort. Stole the puck at the blueline, danced around the defenceman and made the Amerks goalie eat it by roofing the puck. Phenominal puck control.

After all of this you think I'd be happy. Nope. What is not in the box score is the crap and shenanigans put on by the Amerks.

1) With a 6-0 lead Duncan Milroy gets runover on an unnecessary hit. I think the video will be sent in to the AHL offices. The guy came like a locomotive and Milroy either blew a tire or tried a quarterback slide and took a knee right to the face. He had to be helped of the ice with what will most likely be a concussion. The Amerks player looked to have messed up his knee on the hit and looked like he took the worst of it.

2) Down 6-0 with a minute left to play the Amerks pulled the goalie to try and ruin the shutout. Can you friggin' believe that??? What kind of bush league, beer league, highschool bullcrap is that? Unbelievable. Who does that?

Another bit of bad news for you. I didn't quite see what happened, but in the last minute during an Amerks flurry Andrei Kostitsyn slower crawled toward the bench. He hurt his leg very badly and it looked like he had been shot. It was painful to watch him crawl. He almost didn't make it to the bench. This was all while play was still going on. They opened the bench doors and dragged him in and he laid on the hallway floor for a few minutes before being helped into the dressing room. I don't know if he blocked a shot, twisted a knee or was hit by a sniper. Kostitsyn and Milroy could be on the DL for awhile.

An excellent game marred by a couple of injuries and some surprising poor sportsmanship from the Amerks.

I can't make tomorrow afternoons game against Milwaukee, so if someone else goes it'd be great if you could fill us all in.

[montreal]

I watched some of the game on the webcast while watching the Habs. Saw Kostitsyn crawling on the ice, don't know what happened. Also I saw Halak laying on the ice and then he seemed to be flexing his leg. Don't know if he's injured or not.

I was wondering what the hell was going on with rochester pulling their goalie. I thought their had to be a penalty called and they were just getting the extra attacker on, very strange. I missed the Milroy hit but I heard it as my computer is less then 2 feet from my tv.

Saw the Grabovski goal, was another highlight reel goal. Also good to see Manlow double his production.

[Gogie]

gas said:

2) Down 6-0 with a minute left to play the Amerks pulled the goalie to try and ruin the shutout. Can you friggin' believe that??? What kind of bush league, beer league, highschool bullcrap is that? Unbelievable. Who does that?

The Amerks pulled their goalie because Hamilton was being called on a delayed penalty (Jancevski for hooking at 19:16). I thought the same thing at first when I saw thier goalie heading for the bench but then realized a penalty was being called.

This was certainly the best effort I've seen from the Bulldogs this year. The players that I was impressed with were, in no particular order:

Kostitsyn - played a very strong game all around. He was invovled all the time and I didn't see him "float" at all.

Locke - Certainly the best game he's played in a long time. He wasn't playing on the peripheral like he usually does and it his production showed it.

D'Agostini - He's playing with a lot of confidence for a rookie. Looked good out there.

Grabovski - He scored an unbelievable goal (he actually stole the puck at the top of the face off circle, danced around the defenseman (who's still looking for his jock), dipsy doodled across the front of the crease and roofed a beauty). This guy is amazing. His one shortcoming is his size - he can be knocked off the puck too easily, but you have to catch him first. Give him the least bit of space and he'll dazzle you.

Halak - Solid game. He wasn't worked too hard for the most part, I don't think, but he made some outstanding saves in the third and he made the saves he had to early on to keep the momentum with the Dogs. It might have been a case of him making a lot of difficult saves look easy. Anyhow, Danis can kiss No. 1 goodbye - this guy is for real. Since first playing in the AHL last year he's played 21 games, has 6 shutouts (3 last year, 3 already this year), has a GAA of 2.01 and a save % of 0.934. His record is only 12-9, but he's had a lot of weak efforts in front of him (on average the Dogs have given up just over 30 shots per game when he has played).

Milroy - I've been watching him for a number of years now and the Milroy I saw last night (and for this year, as a matter of fact) is not the Milroy I've seen in the three previous years. He's a solid offensive force and looks like he might just have a shot at the bigs.

O'Byrne - He's not playing like a rookie anymore. He's developing nicely and is showing a lot more confidence.

The rest of the team played well too. I can't think of anyone that looked bad out there last night.

[Deleted]

Goon tactics by Rochester? Sounds like they're being trained the way Buffalo is.

[habmeister]

future is bright. thanks guys!