Welcome back to Sports Net live, where we have just watched an entertaining contest and our final regular season match-up, the 74th game of the SMJHL season, between the St. Louis Scarecrows and the Halifax Raiders, where the Raiders took advantage of St. Louis rookie goalie Kasper Haapanen, and handily beat the SMJHL Leading St. Louis Scarecrows, 4-0.

For those that are just tuning in now, lets give you some highlights…

Synopsis/Highlights

The St. Louis Scarecrows have had struggles containing the Halifax Raiders this season and rookie goalie Kasper Haapanen who started out brilliantly with a 43 save performance against the Montreal Militia, just a few days ago, has struggled as of late in his mandatory 6 games, in relief of starter Casey Holmes.

Could this potentially be a SMJHL Eastern Division playoff match-up? Only time will tell, but if it is, the St. Louis Scarecrows might want to start watching some film, otherwise this could be an upset in the making.

Let’s get to the action…

1st Period:

St. Louis comes out strong and Halifax is on their heels with a strong offensive push by the Scarecrows. However, it’s not the Scarecrows top line doing the damage, it is the second and third lines getting through. We taking you back to later in the firs period with the Scarecrows on a rush:

“Erichsen to Diablo as he streaks down the left side into the Raiders zone. Erichsen passes it to Charlyb'y who just gets lit up by Gorlab! Gorlab has been throwing the body around tonight, that’s his second hit of the game and a massive one! Porter (MVP) picks up the loose puck and Felix Herztog, the LA Panther prospect, over to Leif De Bruin another Panthers prospect, as they head into the Scarecrows zone. De Bruin pauses waiting for a streaking Rosston to come into the play, the pass, it goes off Haapanen, the rebound to Rosston…. the shot! GOAL !! On only their 4th shot of the period, the Halifax Raiders have jumped out to the 1-0 lead!”

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What a terrible rebound on what looked like an easy shot to handle by Kaapanen. You see the Scarecrows coaches talking on the bench, we’ll see if this has any impact later in the game, as the Scarecrows should be up, outshooting the Raiders 9-4 in the period.

2nd Period:

The Falcons come out with a little more life in the second period and match the Scarecrows effort, as the period has a lot of back and forth action. The issue for the Scarecrows is by mid-way through the 2nd period Halifax had added 2 more goals on 4 shots in the period, and lead by a 3-0 score. Let’s go back to the play with just over half the period over:

“Feist with another face-off win over to Strange, but Herzog is all over him, Strange, the Captain of the Scarecrows pushes Herzog and the two exchange some words in the corner, as De Bruin comes in and gives Strange a jab. Emotions are definitely running high, as Feist and Hans now join in the scrum…. nothing comes of it, as cooler heads prevail. The third line for the Scarecrows comes on. Reflieux gets kicked out of the circle to the right of Kaapanen, Aumeisters wins the draw back to Porter…the shot! GOAL !!! 3 goals on 5 shots in the period, 4 goals on 9 shots for the Raiders! They now lead 4-0.”

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That’s the end of Haapanen’s night, as he gets pulled and doesn’t look to happy about it, but you honestly can’t blame the coaches, as it was a terrible night for the Scarecrows netminder. Casey Holmes the veteran comes in.

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3rd Period:

Halifax smells blood in the water and comes out strong and it would definitely be more then 4-0 if Casey Holmes was not putting in a strong performance in the period and in fact has faces more shots then starting netminder Kaapanen, so far in the game. However, lets take you to one of the few scoring opportunities the Scarecrows had in the period.

“Charlyb'y wins the faceoff in the Raiders end and gets it back to Landry, to Rivet, back to Landry. Landry straddles the blue line and then passes it to Diablo, over to Erichsen, back to Diablo streaking to the net, he shoots!! OH WHAT A SAVE BY Richard C. Hocolate, he simply robbed him! Lets look at that again. Diablo had the wide open net and somehow the Raiders netminder was able to get the paddle down and make an incredible save….Simply amazing save, highlight of the night material right there!”

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With Richard C. Hocolate stopping everything that came his way and the damage already been done with Haapanen in net, the Halifax Raiders cruised to what looked like a relatively lopsided 4-0 victory.

Individual Player Stat Breakdown

Once again the Scarecrows were outshot, but this time they did not get good goaltending, or any offensive production, which normally they get at least one of these two. Let’s break down the goaltenders to show the comparision:

Scarecrows:

Kasper Haapanen - 5 saves from 9 shots - (0.556 Sv %)
Casey Homes – 12 saves from 13 shots – (1.00 Sv%)

Raiders:

Richard C. Hocolate - 21 saves from 21 shots – (1.00 Sv %)

It is clear by looking at the numbers that Halifax, who outshot the Scarecrows 22-21, were lucky enough to catch Haapanen on an off night, but the Scarecrows were unlucky and caught Richard C. Hocolate on one of his better nights this season.

To me this is the key to the game.

Most Valuable Player

The Star of the game is an easy one, kicking aside all 21 shots and guaranteeing a victory for his team by not allowing a goal, against the highest scoring team in the entire SMJHL, our MVP is …… Richard C. Hocolate!!

Surprisingly enough, Richard C. Hocolate has not had the best season (below .900 Sv%), though he has been able to register a few shutouts and is becoming known as more of a “hot/cold” goalie, which is not something you want when the team in front of you is looking for consistency. Though we know he is working hard with his goalie coaches and this is likely through training and preparation they will try and fix.

However, tonight he was definitely hot and stole the show for the Halifax Raiders!

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