One word describes last night's game "Disappointing". The game started off with a lot of energy for the Wranglers. The T-Hawks scored first but the Wranglers came right back with the tying goal. The crowd was huge last night (attendance 462 - largest of the year to date) and they went nuts. Too bad that was pretty much it for the large crowd to cheer about and the first period ended a disappointing 5-1 for the T-Hawks.The Wranglers were given plenty of chances to make a comeback. They had powerplay after powerplay; 5 on 3 chances, 5 on 4 chances, but they could not muster up any scoring chances. In fact, the Wranglers gave up 2 shorthanded goals in the 2nd period. Goalies Kramer and Gayet had no chance last night with odd man rush after rush. The Wranglers picked up a late 3rd period goal by Summa and that was it.
The Wranglers seemed to play with no energy last night. Same old problems - no passing, poor shooting, and no scoring. It seems like all the teams in NORPAC that play the Wranglers always keep a man waiting on the blue line for the break out pass. Or as some of us would call it a "Cherry Picker". At least 3 T-Hawk goals came this way. This is just embarrassing. In essence our competitors are simply saying they only need 4 people in the defensive zone when the Wranglers are on offense. Consequently it seems that the Wranglers are pretty much on a powerplay the entire game. The Wranglers need to start making teams pay for this "cherry picking" with good passing and perhaps "boom" the Wranglers would have a goal.
Some players deserve some kudos. I thought the new local kids and the 2 kids from Arizona played with a lot of energy. And again Purslow played well. He has played really well since Christmas break. Jeff did a very good job playing "D" last night in the 3rd period with some of the regular D-men out of the lineup (Grant was ill, and Chase was out of town). And as always the Wranglers goalies played well too. Its hard to stop all the odd man rushes these kids see every night.
Lets go Wranglers. You have a chance to ruin the T-Hawk's season with a victory tonight. Lets play with some fire like the last road trip. You have the fans here wanting nothing but a victory for you. Lets show them that you care and give them a great game tonight.
(PS, the above blog was contributed to me by a "great" Wrangler fan.)
