Edmonton slipped past Portland 3-2 at Rexall Place Thursday night in a game that had many twists and turns.
Portland came out hitting hard, and seemed to be going after Henrik Samuelsson. Were they doing it because he has a tendency to lose his cool and get suspended? Brad Ross said post game he doesn't target specific players. Noone except every skilled player in the Western Conference agrees with him.
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| Photo: Andy Devlin |
The Oil Kings scored early and started a trend as captain Mark Pysyk's shot was tipped in by overaged forward Rhett Rachinski, while fellow 20 year old Jordan Peddle ripped a short handed marker past Mac Carruth in the second that gave Edmonton a two goal lead. You might say it was TPS karma for Peddle who joined Guy and I Tuesday night.
However our good vibes work both ways as Sven Bartschi tipped in a William Wren point shot after Marcel Noebels scored a power play goal and brought Portland within one.
The Kings had earlier taken a 2-0 lead thanks to a bull rush from the Moose Mitch Moroz. Martin Gernat put home the Moroz rebound for his 6th of the playoffs.
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| Photo: Andy Devlin |
Laurent Brossoit was deadly quick with his pads all night long but as Bartschi said they scored two on him so he's not unbeatable and you know they'll try and rev it up again tonight. But they might have to do it without Ty Rattie. He was driven hard into the board by draft eligible power forward Mitch Moroz. Rattie was off balance and appeared to bang his head into the boards. To me it looked like he was out and was wobbly as he left the ice. Hawks head coach Mike Johnson did say he looked ok after the game so we'll see. The hit was clean in my books.
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| Photo: Andy Devlin |
Brad Ross also left the ice at one point and looked to be favouring his shoulder. He said post game that he went a little to hard after a hit and missed and banged into the glass. He returned a short time later and didn't seemed to be bothered by it the rest of the game. He did get into it a bit with Travis Ewaynyk at the buzzer and you know now that the feeling out process is over game two should pick up where game one left off.
As for Edmonton as a whole, they weren't that crisp in game one, passes seemed to be off a bit, mistakes that we don't usually see were made, but that could be chalked up to nerves and not really knowing Portland like Moose Jaw, Brandon and Kootenay. The bright spot is they won and like after losing to Moose Jaw - they're only loss in the post season - they bounced back with a solid effort in game 5 of the Eastern Conference semi final.
Can't wait for puck drop tonight, full preview on Global Sports at 5 and 6 pm today.
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