Welcome to the post-game show for Vancouver Whalers vs St. Louis Scarecrows! Both teams entered this game with the same record from their last 10 games, 5-3-2. Vancouver did however have the mental upper hand as during the last 10 games these two teams fought once where Vancouver came out on top. But St. Louis were highly determined to get revenge on the Whalers.

Period 1
While Vancouver won the initial face off, St. Louis took charge immediately after and did not allow Vancouver to get away with anything. It might have had something to do with the penalty to Vancouver’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic Jr. that happened only 32 seconds into the game. St. Louis had strong zone pressure throughout the entire penalty and they did not let go even after Vancouver were full strength again.

And all this pressure paid off. After ¾ of the period had been played St. Louis got two goals in quick succession. After practically setting up camp in Vancouver’s zone, James Ronlain scored the first goal of the game after a counter attack that started with Yamamoto Mitsuharu intercepting a Vancouver pass. Only 15 seconds later Yamamoto himself got on the scoreboard after a face off win in Vancouver’s zone.

The first period was all about St. Louis. While the puck spent quite a bit of time in St. Louis’ zone, Vancouver had nothing going for them and finished with only three shots on goal.

Period 2
Vancouver turned it around in the second period. While they didn’t take over the game, they at least started playing on the same level as St. Louis and got multiple dangerous chances.

There was a lot of back and forth with a bunch of missed nets and blocked shots, nothing too exciting stood out until Ryszard Franciszek of the St. Louis Scarecrows was awarded a holding penalty just past the halfway point of the period. Vancouver had three shot attempts during their power play and just before the two minutes were up, they scored via Francois Breton.

After the goal the game went back to swinging back and forth, and with just under three minutes to go Noah Andros from the Whalers received a penalty. St. Louis had a lot of pressure during the first minute of the powerplay but were not able to score.

Period 3
From all that happened in the third period, it would seem that the first two periods were only warm up for the Whalers. Only 8(!) seconds into the period, Vancouver tied the game. And then 30 seconds later, they were suddenly in the lead. Two shots, two goals, after only 38 seconds.

The game stayed hot and we saw St. Louis take a penalty after just another 30 seconds. Once again Vancouver’s power play unit flexed their muscles when the rookie Nicholas Corrigan increased the lead to 2. Three minutes, three shots on goal, three goals. This called for a goalie change on St. Louis’ side and Marques Brownlee entered the game. Saying that Vancouver was on fire would be an understatement.

Now you probably think that they would cool down a little bit at least. Well if you did, you would be wrong. Barely 40 seconds after the last goal St. Louis got another penalty. And once again, Vancouver’s power play did exactly what they were supposed to do. They scored yet another goal. A little over four minutes into the period and Vancouver was now up by 3. By this point St. Louis had not had a single shot attempt.

After this St. Louis finally saw some longer puck possessions and managed a few shot attempts, but the Whalers were still a force to be reckoned with and continued their onslaught. They would come to score once again before the period’s halfway mark when Francois Breton scored his second of the night. A 0-2 deficit had now turned into a 6-2 lead.

The Scarecrows got some wind under their wings when they finally got another power play and James Ronlain also saw his second goal of the game after a real quick face off win and shot immediately after the penalty was called. Not many people had time to react before the puck was in the back of the net.

St. Louis kept fighting for more. Refusing to give up. We saw a few more penalties and a few dangerous chances on both sides but in the end, no more goals were scored. Vancouver won 6-3.

Three Stars
1 - Francois Breton
2 - Bobby Bobcalf
3 - Jan Zacha