This was a rough game as well and a really bad start… I felt shaky and didn’t have a lot of confidence.

This was right off the opening face off and not a good way to get settled in the game. I got lucky here and actually over slid to the left from the fresh ice, the puck does actually hit my stick and bad but because I wasn’t square I needed the post to bail me out.

The last couple of games I was having trouble with my glove hand, and playing twice a month doesn’t help either. This one I completely whiffed on a really easy shot and within 5 minutes the team is down by 1.

While this goal wasn’t completely my fault there were a bunch of things I did poorly and didn’t help my cause. The first being I committed to the reverseVH (RVH from now on) too early which exposed the player out front since I was had too much weight on my right foot and didn’t push of properly to the front of my net. I initially went into the RVH here because after the quick first goal I wanted to ensure I didn’t let in a weak short side or post goal and wanted the player at the dot to have nothing to shoot at. I tried to make a desperation save when the player directly in front shot it which in turn pulls me off the post for the backdoor tip in. In hindsight I should have kept my right leg on the post and I probably would of got the back door save, but my inflexibility hurt here and I was trying to get my stick down and my body down to block it.

This was just a decent slide from my left to right, and I wanted something positive to be in this video!

I thought this was some decent cross crease movement and shows me battling through a screen (which becomes important later on). I went down from behind the net quickly because of the backdoor pass earlier, I wasn’t positive where the opponents were in front of the net so I wanted to cover low for a precaution in case they slipped a puck out to someone for a quick bang in play. The correct play when the puck was moved to the point was to come out and challenge, but with my player and an opponent right next to me I didn’t want to risk being in transition when the puck was shot or possibly tipped. I did do a decent job of pushing off of the post and challenging a bit while still on me knees. I did let up a pretty garbage rebound that was put over the net, but I was completely screened and had no idea where the puck was. I tried to get big and cover as much of the net as possible and you should be able to see this when I shrug my shoulders.

Here is another play that was a direct result of me feeling shaky. I again wanted to ensure nothing short side went in so I slide into the shot covering all the post side. This is dangerous as a shot low glove would create a huge rebound in front of the net and an example of this happens later on in the game.

Once again another play where I wanted to ensure I just made the save. The RVH here wasn’t really necessary and if I dropped into the butterfly while staying square to the shot I probably would’ve eaten up the rebound with my pants. This save gives up a big rebound in the slot but the opposition can only get a weak backhand off that goes wide. Decent job by defense tying him up and I did an decent job of getting up and ready for the next shot. Ideally I should’ve been at the top of the crease though.

Again here I am battling through screens. I go down with a guess as to where the puck is going to end up as I saw the original shot but lost the puck when I moved towards the direction it was going. The puck gets stopped on the way and I managed to track it to an opponents stick who gets off a pretty quick shot. My left leg was already in decent position and I end up making a decent save. While I wasn’t perfectly square to the shot and the top corner was open, my glove stayed in a decent spot and covered the area directly above my pad as well.

I tried to say more square with this play and not drop to early into the RVH like before. I do a decent job and a shot into short side post is handled with a butterfly but the rebound goes right back to the player who took the shot. Last time I played this ended up being a rebound goal so I tried to get myself covering the post as much possible which puts me off balance and makes for an awkward position as I try to slide back across the net as the player goes behind. I suppose I could’ve gotten into a VH for the recovery as I don’t believe I would’ve stopped a quick wrap around, but I am not really sure. If you have ideas please let me know.

I am actually pretty unhappy with this save. This was the shooter who scored the first goal and I was worried he was going to do the same here, I get just a bit of my blocker on it and I really felt like I barely fought it off. He also had a strange shot that I felt dipped or always felt like it was off speed and I struggled with it.

This was a much more dangerous play that it looked and really could’ve put the game away if we went down 3 in the first period. I knew there was a player charging the net so I tried to get in a fairly square and large butterfly, but I wasn’t able to cover high on the short side and if this was tipped a few inches towards the net it would’ve ended up as a fantastic glove save or a very nice goal.

Fighting screens was something I was doing a lot of this game. I never actually saw this shot released and thought I was on a decent angle so dropped and tried to cover all holes in tight. The shot managed to hit my blocker and get deflected into a corner and was a good and lucky save made by good positioning.

This play started on a failed breakout off of a face off, so the opposing team was never deep enough to really cause me any trouble. I was able to challenge a good amount and the shot was a relatively poorly aimed one that I was able to absorb and cover with no rebound.

This is one of those plays that could be argued that a poke check would’ve stopped a dangerous play from happening. I felt like the pass was far enough from my stick that if I lunged to block it I would’ve been too far out of position if I missed. Since I am not very good at poke checks I generally decide to stay passive in these situations and try to cover the net on the shots in front. I did a decent job of covering low but my defense ended up blocking the shot.

I mentioned earlier that when I try to cover all of short side a shot to the low far side is very dangerous for a rebound… and here is a great example of that. I overplay high blocker which leaves me sliding away from the shot and creating a dangerous rebound off of my toe. I attempt to corral it but my teammate actually knocks it away from me but luckily it bounces away from their attacking forward as well.

On this 2-on-1 I figured the shooter was going to shoot low blocker and go for the garbage rebound since this team has been pretty unselfish so far. My defense did a good job in protecting this and the shooter looked like he wanted to score high blocker, which I got a chunk of on the thumb part and the rebound bounced over his stick.

Here is another screen I had to fight through, and lost. I didn’t know who the pass was to on the backhand because my defense was directly in my line of sight to the trailing player the whole time. I also had 3 people directly in the way of the shot which was a perfectly place slap shot right inside the post. I tried to cover as much of the angle as possible but it wasn’t enough. If I had any idea where the trailing player was coming from I might have challenged sooner. I saw the shooter come across the blue line but lost track of him once the initial puck carrier went to his backhand.

There wasn’t much for me to do in the third period, this play happened after I tried to go to the bench for an extra attacker and had to skate back from a turnover. I am a poor puck handler and this is another example, I tied to chip the puck off the boards to my teammate to try and keep the play going because we were running out of time.

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