Wow what a win tonight, with 4 rookie D and the "veteran" being 2005 born Luca Marrelli.
-Carter Bickle was outstanding stopping 41/45 including several huge saves using his athleticism going post to post
-Cal Ritchie 1G/2A and what an assist for the OT winner beating Rohrer/Pinelli up the ice, dangling Matier and putting it on a tee for Roobreock for the GWG. Sounds like Ritchie is going to go middle of the 1st round and some team is going to get a really good one.
-Basically everything IceDog fans didn't like about Roobroeck last year, he's been the complete opposite with the Gens.
-They said he was soft, well he's now one of the more physical players on one of the most physical teams in the league, and had another huge fight win tonight (he's a definitive 3-0 this season in fights) and Horner did not return after Roobroeck sent him to the 67s room bleeding late in the 2nd.
-They said he couldn't skate, well before the OT winner, he was chasing Vinzenz Rohrer who looked to have a step on him and Roobroeck not only caught up to him but also hammered him into the boards, which allowed Ritchie to grab the puck and start this clip for the GWG (oh and the Niagara IceDogs were officially eliminated from the playoffs with the Gens win tonight lol)
-The reffing was badddddddd in this gam both ways. Missed a clear head check from Butler on Mews, about 5 slash/crosschecks from Boucher/Stonehouse throughout the game. But I can't get over how they bundled the Ritchie penalty late and allowed Ottawa to tie it. Didn't end up mattering but Costantini tripping penalty then 15 seconds later Ritchie 4 minutes high stick. Those penalties were not at the same time so it's 2 minutes of 4-on-4 then OTT gets a 2 minute PP (but only would've been 48 seconds left in the game). But instead somehow they deem 2 of Ritchie's 4 and Costantini wipe each other out so OTT just gets a 2 minute powerplay and it's OTT 6-on-4 with the goalie out instead of the 5-on-4 that it should've been. That was all-time bad, but at least it didn't matter.
-4 rookie defensemen against the best team in the OHL and they certainly held their own. Marrelli, Danford, D'Amato and Bedkowski played a ton and those 4 were all great. Gens PK goes 5/7 (one of them was with the goalie out so was 6-on-4) and got 2 shortys so in Ottawa's 7 powerplays, they tied 2-2. Pretty impressive with the 2 best PK D-men out (Stewart and Parfenyuk). Danford and Bedkowski were playing major minutes (along with Marrelli) on the PK tonight.
-Might not be the most glamorous comp but I see a ton of Aidan Wallace in Matt Buckley. Can be a super value
4th line centre and really good PK guy and shutdown role forward, which is exactly what Wallace was on the Gens 2015 Mem Cup winning team.
-Gens are now 4-5-1 this year against teams currently in the CHL Top 10 when they played the Gens. Pretty impressive how disciplined Laxdal has this young team playing against teams with a lot more talent than them.
In NHL news, John Tavares passed #GensAlumni Jason Arnott for the 92nd most goals in NHL history and 3rd most from a Gens Alumni