UPPER VALLEY HOCKEY LEAGUE

Playoff Tune-Up #2: Nordiques @ Dead River

ODDS:	Nords By 1 Goal
OVER/UNDER:	7 Goals

As the sun sets on the regular season this Tuesday night, the UVHL moves to Campion and a pair of games that have zero outcome on the playoff picture will take place. The second of those games is the Nordiques & Dead River. #3 vs #4. These two teams haven't seen each other in over 3 months, since the week before Christmas.

At that time of the season, the Nordiques were 3-3-0 and Dead River sat winless at 0-7-0. That was before James "Han" Solon brought "The Force" to Dead River and injected them with some much needed goal scoring and speed. Since joining the UVHL in January, Solon has added 20 points in just 8 games and already has 25% of his teams goals on the entire season (10 of 40).

Since that last meeting, the Nordiques have gone 3-7-0 and Dead River 2-7-0. Neither team overly proud of the last 9 or 10 games of the season.

Solon is the great equalizer for these two teams, but will it be enough? Vegas says that the Nordiques win 4-3. If the Nords can replicate last week's 8-3 win over the Whalers, this will be a solid win for them. If they play like the bag of shit that they've brought to the rink over the last 3 months...then Dead River runs right through them.

Dead River Embarrasses Nordiques in Season Finale

It wasn't the way the Nordiques wanted to head into the playoffs, but it was exactly the message the Dead Riverians wanted to send to the rest of the league heading into the playoffs.

Dead River was also tuning up for the Playoff Play-In against the Whalers on Thursday night. The winner of that game would go on to the playoffs, the loser would be done for the season. An added incentive was that the Nordiques would be a measuring stick since the Nords blew out the Whalers last week 8-3. A Dead River win over the Nordiques would mean that they had a good chance of moving on to the playoffs.

It was a tight game for the first period with only one goal being scored. Despite the 1-0 lead after 15 minutes, the speed & tenacity of Dead River couldn't be matched by the slow and docile Nordiques team. The Nords were out-shot 10-4 in the period and took the only penalty of the frame. Dead River went up 3-0 in the first 10 minutes of the 2nd on goals from Jamie "Han" Solon, who cut through the Nordiques like a hot light-saber through some fat old men, and then Loren "The Leper" Lunt finished a Bubba Lazarczyk pass. Jordy "McBreakaway" McGee finally broke through Matty "Tazzy" Albertazzi with 5:07 left in the second to make it 3-1. Tazzy was superb in this one as he stopped 31 of 33 for the win, first star of the game and Player Of the Week nomination.

TJ Moran scored just over a minute later and 80 seconds after that the Nordique's Brian "The Beard" Racicot cut the lead back to 2 goals. The second period was much busier with both teams peppering the other goalie with 15 shots each.

It was 4-2 Dead River after 30 minutes of play and nobody could break through early on in the third period. It took over 15 minutes for Dead River to put one past Johnny "Temper Tantrum" Turner, but that one goal from TJ "Maroon 5" Moran was enough to break open the flood gates and the Nordiques fell apart like a crib with no screws. James Solon added his second of the night just 22 seconds after Moran's goal, then 90 secons later The Leper put in his second of the game and a controversial non-goal with just 7 seconds later by Mark "The Wiggles" Weglarz was just icing on the cake. Weglarz toasted Turner with a hard snapper that beat the goaltender but rang the post. The referee called it a goal, Weglarz said it probably didn't go in, but just wanted to point out that he still could shoot the puck and that if it was just 2 inches to the middle, it WOULD have been a goal!D

The Nordiques lacked heart in this one. Dead River showed that they have more than enough to embarrass the #3 seed.

 

Team:	Time:	Type:	Player:	Details:
1st PERIOD
NDQ	09:31	Penalty	McGee, Jordan(1)	2 minutes for Tripping
LAB	01:38	Goal	Lazarczyk, Keith(7)	Assist(s): Rasco, Jason(1)
2nd PERIOD
LAB	09:17	Goal	Solon, James(13)	Assist(s): Moran, Terence(8)
LAB	06:57	Goal	Lunt, Loren(6)	Assist(s): Lazarczyk, Keith(3)
NDQ	05:07	Goal	McGee, Jordan(22)	Assist(s): Phillips, Roger(8) McGovern, Ryan(5)
LAB	03:56	Goal	Moran, Terence(7)	Assist(s): none
NDQ	02:31	Goal	Racicot, Brian(6)	Assist(s): Grande, Stuart(4) Zagaria, Alexandra(2)
LAB	00:07	Penalty	noble, geoff(4)	2 minutes for Tripping
3rd PERIOD
NDQ	13:44	Penalty	Mayhew, Pierce(3)	2 minutes for Tripping
NDQ	10:12	Penalty	McGee, Jordan(2)	2 minutes for Roughing
NDQ	06:13	Penalty	Phillips, Roger(5)	2 minutes for Tripping
LAB	04:23	Goal	(PP)Moran, Terence(8)	Assist(s): Lawrence, Justin(4) Billings, Trevor(1)
LAB	04:01	Goal	Solon, James(14)	Assist(s): Lawrence, Justin(5) Moran, Terence(9)
LAB	02:32	Goal	Lunt, Loren(7)	Assist(s): Rasco, Jason(2) Lazarczyk, Keith(4)
NDQ	01:00	Penalty	Phillips, Roger(6)	2 minutes for Roughing
LAB	01:00	Penalty	Billings, Trevor(11)	2 minutes for Roughing
LAB	00:07	Goal	Weglarz, Mark(2)	Assist(s): Zaha, Spencer(3) Sprague, Ray(1)

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