Consistent shooting yields opportunity

One of the mainstay advantages that Anchorage has is keeping an equal or superior amount of shots on goal, per period, over their opponents.  Despite losing in the shootout, Anchorage out-shot anaheim 30 to 24 and did will maintaining shot leads per period:  11-7, 11-7, 7-7, and 1-2 in overtime.  Leading the way in shots for Anchorage was Daniel Bischoff (6) followed closely by Andrei Petrikov (5).  Augustus Wang, Cyril Vyskoc, Gart Cheezit, Jake Primeau, Jay Reeves, Joe Kerr, Lando Norris, Mitchell van der Heijden, Ryan Cvitkovich, and Shelby Schmackers all tallied additional shots for Anchorage.

The most shots in the game though went to Anaheim Center Kevin Robinson, who alone ticked up seven shots on goal by himself.  The next closest person in the game would be the aforementioned Bischoff.  The next closest person however on Anaheim would only have four goals (Kofix) to attribute.  



Big Hits
Its surprising that hits aren't a big consideration for star of the game, especially when it comes to forcing loss of the puck.  Anchorage was able to outhit Anaheim 18 to 15 in this match-up.  These hits lead to eleven situations by Anaheim where turnovers could have, or did happen, and that sort of rate goes hand in hand with increased scoring opportunities.  Anchorage's Stan Hanson was a hitting machine in this game, serving up seven hits on his own.  Of those seven hits, six of them caused or nearly caused turnovers on the ice.  An impressive eighty-five percent rate on hits.  

Of Anaheim's fifteen hits, thirteen of the fifteen hits lead to situations where a turnover almost, or did happen.  This eighty-six percent chance of opportunity definitely outshines the fact they were outhit by Anchorage, but just shows that their puck control on contact is a smidgen better and potentially what helped keep the game so low.



Power Plays
Both teams did well this game in both managing their penalties and killing the man-advantage opportunities of the opposition.  Anaheim offered up more time in this match up, giving six minutes of advantage to Anchorage, however their penalty-kill unit stopped everything that was thrown at them.   Anchorage on the other hand only was able to keep one of two undermanned opportunities from happening and allowed Anaheim to score on the power play thanks to a roughing call on Joe Kerr at the three minute mark.  Otherwise, both teams were quite disciplined in this match, giving up no penalties in the first period and only one, hooking, late in the second period.  The third period racked up the remaining penalties, two apiece but overall as we have seen from earlier games in the season...it could have been quite different for either of these teams.

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