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A very close close game that proved to be vital win for the Raiders. The bottom 4 of the SMJHL are very close in the standings. 1 or more losses between those teams can mean the difference between making the playoffs and just barely missing it. The Raiders coming into the game with a record of 10-9 and St. Louis 5-12 . The Raiders started off the season hot but previous to this game were on a 3 game losing streak. St. Louis started off the season very rough and even though they lost this game they shortly began to turn it around since.


Period 1


The Raider took control of this game from the from the few minutes of Period , outshooting the Scarecrows 11-5. It did not take long for the scoring to open by. The play started off a well timed interception by Kyle Corbett  and at 4:20, which happens to be the locker room’s favourite time,  Crush Cile gets his 6th of the year assisted by Quinn Cullen and Roly Rollerson.Cile has been red hot this year and one of the best rookies this year. It is  easy to see why he was selected 4th overall in this year's draft.

Crush Cile's goal after a missed shot.



Period 2


The second period was very uneventful for both sides in terms of scoring, with only 5 Raider shots to the Scarecrows 3. However, St. Louis took the opportunity to show the Raiders that they can play a more physical game . Although that style can come with it’s own troubles resulting in 3 minor penalties by : Helmuts Akmenlauks at 4:42, Tony Snow at 10:48, Rowdy Smithers at 17:58. Luckily that did not burn them in the end and their PK unit was able to stave off the Raiders for all 6 minutes

Tony Snow, watching the replay of his penalty on the big screen



Period 3

After the mostly uneventful 2nd period the 3rd did not disappoint. Halifax turning up the offensive production and out shooting St.Louis  22-8. after 5 shots in the first 45 second of the  period the Raiders get their second of the game. This one coming from a FA agent pick up Vince Rieper assisted by Pierre Laroche-Durocher and Oliver Kovacs. Rieper has been outstanding and an amazing signing by TDZ . Rieper has slotted in very well with the Kovacs brothers and doesn’t show any sign of slowing down.

Despite the lack of shot generation St. Louis was able to come back with their first goal of the game at 7:11 byt Milo Momoka assisted by Adam Taylor and Nicky Pedersen. The goal giving the Scarecrows some energy going into the later half of the period. However, they were unfortunately, unable to tie it up.

Goal by Milo Momoka.




3 Stars
1 - Friedrich Schmidt (STL)
2 - Vince Rieper (HAL)
3 - Crush Cile (HAL)

3 Stars

1 - Friedrich Schmidt (STL) - A fantastic choice for 1st star of the game. Even though he lost the game, he saved 36 out of 38 shots of that night. That is a save percentage of .947, as well as being in net for all 60 minutes. If anyone could save this game tonight in St Louis it was him. 

2 - Vince Rieper (HAL) - Vince was a deserving #2 for this game. Getting the second jail of Halifax, and he gave Halifax a two-goal lead against STL.  He gave a good 3 hits tonight, as well as played for 16:30 minutes and played 2:44 in PP. He also went 1/1 in faceoffs.

3 - Crush Cile (HAL) - A third star is a good choice for him, as Crush got the first goal in the net. This led to Halifax being dominant, being led to winning the game. Other than that he gave 2 hits, and played 18:26 minutes with 3 minutes on PP and: 40 on the PK.

Underrated player of the Game

Geezus Kryyst (HAL) - You have to give credit to the goalie for Halifax, bieng able to stop 14 out of 15 shots for the night, putting up a good save percentage as .933. He helped saved Halifax from going into overtime, or even losing the game.

Face Off %

STL 47/87   (54%)
HAL 40/87    (45%)

Best FaceOff % of each team
STL Goku Muerto  12/21 (57%)
HAL Mr. Faceoffs  12/19 (63%)

Worse FaceOff % of each team
STL Jack Daniels 3/11 (27%)
HAL Kristof Kovacs 16/31 (51%)

What happens on the dot with Mr. Faceoffs

Faceoffs takes up a big role in today's hockey. Every time you win a draw you get possession of the puck. The more your team have the puck, the more scoring chance you get and vice-versa. Which is why Centers take pride in winning them draws and why coaches love center men who do win them.

Halifax Raiders: 49 wins on 87 faceoffs taken (56,3%)
St. Louis Scarecrows: 38 wins on 87 faceoffs taken (43,7%)

Clear advantage on the dot for the Halifax Raiders here.

The winner and the loser for today's game:

Winner: Halifax Raiders' center Mr. Faceoffs with 12 wins on 19 faceoff taken (63,2%)
Loser: St. Louis Scarecrows' center Jack Daniels with 3 wins on 11 faceoff taken (27,3%)

Jack Daniels was definitely intoxicated during this game.

In today's quick game rundown, we will be recapping Game #77 of the season.

St. Louis     vs Halifax 
The Scarecrows season has been a roller coaster of wins and losses, Halifax look to end a 3 game losing streak against the team they last won against.

Key Moments
The key moment for the Raiders happened at 45 seconds into the 3rd, when Vince Rieper scored the eventual game winner for his team. 7:11 of the 3rd period, Milo Momoka scored the lone goal for the Scarecrows.

Top Star of the Game
Friedrich Schmidt get the top star in this one. Despite being on the losing side, he stopped 36 of 38 shots and gave his team a chance to win.
(Word Count: 121)

Tonight's: Was it really just a 2-min?
We look into Tony Snow robbing Halifax forward of a scoring chance 




We don't get to cover a lot of penalties I agree with in this show, but here's one of those necessary ones that I agree with. 

Halifax forward might even be thorough and considered free here, but this penalty is correct to take from Tony. Here he's stopping a very lethal scoring chance while only getting a minor penalty. He also are at no risk injuring his opponent here. 

The only real debate is if the Halifax player should be consider free and get a penalty shot.

My first instinct say no, what does your say? 


What are your thoughts?
Tweet your opinion and add #SHLhockey and #2-min

For St Louis players, all they can say after that game is thank god that they have Friedrich Schmidt. Without him, this game would have been far messier than it was as Halifax just seemed to skate circles around them tonight. Schmidt made 36 saves on 38 shots in an effort to keep his team in the game, but ultimately it wasn't enough. It always must be disappointing when you're a goalie who gets the first star on the way to your team's loss. His counterpart Geezus Kryyst played a strong game as well, only allowing one goal on the much smaller 15 shots.

Raiders Club Crows

A close game on paper but not close if you watched. Besides a decent performance from Schmidt, St. Louis has little to be happy about here.

Cile opened up scoring for the Raiders in the first five minutes. Both teams earned power plays but no one could capitalize.

Good hockey in the second but both teams played a tight and disciplined game.

Rieper gave Halifax a two goal lead just seconds into the third and kept the pressure on. Momoka brought St. Louis back to a one goal deficit but couldn't manage much else.

The Scarecrows got sloppy as this one died down but the Raiders were not taking any chances amd left with a 2-1 win.

The Crows were outshot 35 to 15.

I was going to comment on the fight during game 86 with all sorts of gifs like this,



but the Game’s PGS is not posted yet so this will have to do.

So we are going to in depth look at pathetic play of Lil’ Manius during Game 77 St. Louis Scarecrows vs Halifax Raiders. This bum, basically did nothing during the smack down laid on St. Louis by the Raiders. During the first period Manius basically skated around in circles and accomplished being minus one, with one pass intercepted, zero shots and zero hits. Great! The second period was not much better and Manius continued his aimless skating around. Lil’ Manius managed lose one face off and had three of his passes intercepted. Although on the plus side, he did have one hit, one successful pass and intercepted two passes. The third period Manius continued his sorry excuse for hockey. He was able to have a shot and he did intercept a pass. Although that was more than contradicted by his face off loss, intercepted and just randomly losing the puck. So to summarize Lil’ Manius play during game 77 just sucked.

Words ~193

Ah, the good old days when spirits where still high in Halifax. Midway through the season it looked like it was all coming together for the Raiders and like the team was actually ahead of schedule. After working long and hard to collect a ton of high picks in the deepest draft that the SHL has seen in a long time, Raiders management went on to make good selections and bringing in one of the most promising rookie classes in recent memory, mainly relying on actual rookies early on instead of recreates which raised some exebrows around the league, but seemed to pay off thanks to high-profile picks such as LeShaun King and the Kovac brothers. In what could have been a rebuilding season, the team started quite strong, was well on course to makes the playoffs until past the halfway point of the season when... well, we know how it ended. It all fell apart. A big losing streak at the end of the season cost the Raiders their playoff spot. But this doesn't mean that this was a lost season and to find prove of that, you need to look no further than the Raiders win against the Scarecrows. Sure, on paper it was just a 2-1 victory, but the Raiders absolutely dominated the Scarecrows and won on goals by two of their rookies, Crush Cile and Vince Rieper. In fact, many of their bigger name rookies had a relatively quiet game here and the Raiders still manhandled the Scarecrows - the league better be prepared for what this team might be able to do next season when all their big guns manage to wake up at the same time.

Blues' Goon of the Game

Our Goon of the Game for this game between the St. Louis Scarecrows and the Halifax Raiders is Milo Momoka. Had the Scarecrows have pulled out a win in this game, he might’ve even been able to get one of the three stars awards. But, I guess Goon of the Game honours will suffice for Milo. In just over seventeen and a half minutes on the ice, Milo put up four hits, two solid blocked shots, and a big goal, which would prove to be the only one of the game for the Scarecrows. He also earned himself a couple minutes in the sin bin in the second period with a hooking penalty. Congrats Milo, you’re a real goon!

The Art of Penalty Killing

The St. Louis Scarecrows only had one penalty this game, but in their kill they made the most of it. They managed to make life hell for their opposition. Let's take a look at this piece-by-piece.

Starting things off, Goku Muerto wins the face-off for St. Louis. Bad way to go for Halifax, and leads to a clear from St. Louis. From there, the puck goes to Kyle Corbett who has his pass intercepted near the red line and dumped back into his zone. Already 0-for-2 on possession and zone entries, the Raiders get a bit frustrated and try to rush the puck up with Quinn Cullen on the wing. However, he turns out to be off-side. Off the ensuing face-off, the Kovacs are able to work to get the puck into the zone. However, by now 30 seconds are already off the powerplay clock for them.

That was an indication things were not looking good, and they'd continue to. To give an overall view, the Raiders managed to get only two shots on goal in the entire two minutes with the man-advantage. Not only that, they were low impact shots which Schmidt easily scooped up and held to force face-offs and make Halifax work even harder for it. St. Louis would clear the puck five more times in this penalty kill, showing effective reads and a quick first step to get into the passing lanes and retrieve pucks off misses. This was easily a show of strength from St. Louis on an important part of the game, they demoralized the powerplay of Halifax and then wouldn't even let them back on the ice to get their confidence back at all. Fantastic play by St. Louis, and great self-control.

Pivonka's Pick

With Halifax and St. Louis putting in another hard faught battle its time to tear into some St. Louis centers who once again shit the bed. Goku Muerto and Steven Moyer combined for a minus one rating, and one shot. That's it. In over 35 minutes of ice time that's all they managed to produce. No hits or points. But let's take a look at the faceoffs where they combined for 16/38 which again is just giving the puck away to an already bad Halifax team. The Scarecrows should have run away with this game but failing to win the faceoffs and failing to do anything with the puck when they did, cost them greatly.

Physical Player of the Game - Milo Momoka
Milo Momoka of the St. Louis Scarecrows is our physical player of the game. The forward had four hits tonight, as well as a St. Louis's only goal tonight. Milo would find his first victim nearly nine minutes into the first, finishing a check on Thomas Speardane. Milo would be quiet in the second period, but four and a half minutes into the third period he would drop Thomas Speardane again, this time separating him from the puck. Milo would then go on to crush Pierre Laroche-Durocher and Aiden Elswick within ten seconds, and both would result in a separation from the puck. Milo would also pick up two shots blocked during the game as he patrolled the blue-line.