The Wranglers definitely are playing a different game than a few weeks ago. Starting with last week's games against Eugene, there's a different Wrangler team on the ice. Yes, the Jags beat the Wranglers 4-1, but the game had a much more closer and competitive feel. First and foremost, the Wranglers put a whopping 28 shots on the River City goal. This is refreshing. The offense started to look like a real offense with the Wranglers keeping the puck in the River City zone, passing it around, and getting shots on goal. The major problem I noticed was that the Wranglers were shooting at the goalie, not the back of the net. So many shots right at the goalie. Buckley would simply square up and wait for the shot to come directly to him. Not to say that Buckley isn't good goalie, he is - 2.99 GAA and 0.918% save percentage. But the Wranglers have got to do better at finding the back of the net.The Wranglers were definitely putting on the hits last night. I saw lots of big hits that you could tell was starting to really frustrate the Jags. When a team gets frustrated they start making more penalties. First period was penalty free, second period had 9 penalties for the Jags and only 4 for the Wranglers, and the third period had only one penalty for the Wranglers and 4 for the Jaguars. The Wranglers played a good clean game. Total penalty time for the Wranglers was only 10 minutes whereas the Jaguars had 40 minutes. Again, this tells me the Jaguars were frustrated and gassed.
The goals the Jaguars did make seemed - in my opinion - "fluky" and maybe only 2 goals were good goals. Blanton left at the end of the 1st period with an injury and was replaced by Christian Kramer-Johnson. Blanton you could tell was not up to form letting 3 goals in on only 9 shots. However, "CKJ" stopped 27 of 28 shots. For 40 minutes he worked up a 1.5 GAA and a 0.964 save percentage. Not too bad - way to go Christian.
The Wrangler defense also started to show real promise. The "D" were moving the puck up and out of the zone effectively, the forwards when needed were coming back to help, and finally when needed the "D" was making some shots. Newcomer Zach Miller had a Power-Play assist in his first game with the Wranglers. Miller and Long are teamed up to make an impressive defensive and scoring threat. The Wrangler "D" was also making some great hits and keeping the Jags from shooting at will. For the first two periods River City only had 15 shots, but then poured it on in the 3rd with 22 shots.
The way I see it the score should have been 1-1 not 4-1, but it's reality that counts. The Wranglers played River City very aggressively. Aaron Riermersma scored a nice Power-Play goal in the 2nd period (assisted by Miller) so the Wranglers would have lead it by one only to have the Jags tie it up in the 3rd. Let's tack this loss up to Blanton's injury and 1st period Wrangler jitters. I believe tonight might be a much better game for the Wranglers. I'm still staying with my prediction Wranglers 4, Jaguars 2.
