Sep 30, 2012 | stottle | 1268 views
Midgets Impressive in Season Opener
After some indifferent pre-season results, the St. Thomas "Impressions Printing" Midgets opened their regular season in impressive fashion with a 4-1 victory over the Sarnia Jr. Sting on Sunday night at the Timken Centre in St. Thomas. Taking advantage of some undisciplined play by the visitors, the Jr. Stars scored the first two goals of the game while enjoying the man advantage and were never really threatened by the Sting offense as they cruised to their first win of the season.
The Stars opened their regular season with six minutes of powerplay time in the first eight minutes of the game. But it was not until 6:37 of the first period, while on their fourth consecutive man advantage, that the Stars' powerplay was able to capitalize on their opportunities. Andrew Fenn took a pass just outside the Sting blue line after a Stars' neutral zone regroup. Skating in on the Sting defender, Fenn faked driving outside before pulling the puck back inside to his forehand and ripping a wrist shot high over the glove of netminder Cole Thomas. Dane Jacoletti earned the lone assist on the highlight reel play.
The Stars' powerplay struck again at 9:58 of the second frame. Rookie Jesse Tottle grabbed a juicy rebound off of a Ryan Vanderbroek one-timer from the blue line and slammed home his first of the season to give the Stars a 2-0 lead. Steve Drew was also credited with an assist.
Another rookie, Josh Butler, gave St. Thomas a 3-0 lead when he sniped a wrister into the low left corner past an unsuspecting Thomas. Butler's first of the season was an unassisted effort but came as a result of some good forechecking just inside the Sting blueline.
Sarnia narrowed the score to 3-1 with just under four minutes remaining in the second stanza. An unfortunate turn over off an offensive zone face-off gave the Sting a 2-on 1 break. Reid Wilcox dished a beautiful pass across to Curtis Lindsay, who redirected the puck past a helpless Dan Black.
Steve Drew scored the only goal of the third period when he banged home a rebound off a Keaton McIntyre shot into the yawing cage with just under three minutes to play in the game.
Dan Black was steady in net for the Stars. While he wasn't tested a great deal because of the number of Stars' powerplay opporunities, he made several saves at key times to maintain the Stars' lead.
Game Notes: Despite the absence of Nick Phillips, the Stars defence corps were solid throughout the game and were able to move out of their zone much better than in the pre-season contests.....Aiden Estabrooks was especially effective at breaking out of the defensive zone...the Stars outshot the Sting 39-28.....Ryan Vanderbroek let the Stars with five shots on net, with Jesse Tottle getting four......the Stars were assessed a total of 28 PIMs while the Sting were written up for 47 minutes, including a major for highsticking....Keaton McIntyre edged Max McVety 10-8 in the penalty minute department.....next up for the Stars is another exhibition game against Brantford, which will also mark the return of Nick Phillips to the lineup....next regular season game is Saturday at home against the Jr. Knights.