vs New York

The blue and white managed to escape with a 4-3 victory despite being outshot by a staggering 43 to 18 margin. Joseph Woll was essentially a one man army in the crease, stopping 40 shots and even chipping in with a rare goalie assist on a Dakota Joshua goal. Jake McCabe and Nicholas Robertson gave the boys an early lead that felt far too comfortable, which usually means disaster is lurking around the corner. Dakota Joshua had himself a game with a goal, an assist, and six hits, proving that someone on the roster actually enjoys physical contact.

Predictably, the discipline crumbled in the middle period when Simon Benoit and Oliver Ekman-Larsson took turns visiting the penalty box. New York made them pay with two power play goals, including the first of two from Mika Zibanejad who seemingly lived in our zone with ten shots on goal. John Tavares provided what looked like some breathing room with an unassisted goal, but the lead was immediately cut back to one just a minute later. Taking only three shots in each of the final two periods is a hilarious way to try and win a hockey game, yet here we are.

While Jake McCabe decided to take a minor penalty with twenty seconds left to keep our blood pressure elevated, the clock eventually ran out. William Nylander was relatively quiet but managed to draw a penalty, while Jacob Quillan struggled at the faceoff dot with a painful 17 percent win rate. It was a classic performance where the goaltender bailed out a team that forgot how to play offense for forty minutes. We can enjoy the result for now, but nobody should be getting their hopes up about the defensive structure quite yet.