Utah Grizzlies vs Ontario Reign Post Game 12/4/09

After the harsh game on Wednesday, we entered the E-Center with minimal expectations of a win.

Man, were we wrong.

Solid win by the Grizzlies.

The boys looked good on the ice and played as a team for the entire 60 minutes. May had a 4 point night (1 goal, 3 assists), Shea racked up 2 goals, Snatch was all over the PK, Kotsy picked up 2 assists, and Beljo scored his first professional goal. Nice.

But we've gotta say as far as opponents go, we like Ontario.

Any visiting team that will pucker up for the jumbotron Kiss Cam is down in our book.

UtahGrizzlies.com has the official post game for you. ECHL.com has the gamesheet. And ours is below.

Pregame Warmup: A shot of the warmup.

This is just kind of a cool thought.

We didn't get any good anthem pics, but the group that sang was the best rendition of the anthem we've heard in a long time. Bravo!

Hunter is a scratch; he has the flu.

FIRST PERIOD

Ontario scores 19 seconds in. 1-0.

Damnit.

But Beljo answers 6 minutes later. 1-1.

Kotsy and May get the assists on that.

Ontario takes the puck in the neutral zone.

The plexiglass popped out of frame.

Technical difficulties.

Clarke got the first penalty of the game for roughing.

Faceoff in Grizzlies' end.

Killed.

Ontario puts the pressure on Vlady in the neutral zone.

Ontario goes to the box, and Utah capitalizes.

Shea gets the power play goal. 2-1.

Both Kotsy and May rack up their second points of the night on the assists.

Maxwell takes a tour for tripping.

Snatch is all over the penalty kill.

Ontario gets a hooking call on them at the end of the period.

So Grizzlies will start the 2nd with a power play.

End of first. 2-1, Grizzlies.

SECOND PERIOD

Grizzlies start out on the power play but can't do anything with it.

However, 30 seconds after the power play . . .

May gets a beauty. 3-1.

Unassisted.

May crashes the net.

Shea made one of the best plays of the night during the 2nd.

He checks a guy, grabs the puck, then gets tripped up.

But he holds on to the puck, then gets hit and face plants.

THEN he jumps up, recovers the puck again, and makes a solid pass.

During this entire sequence, he was the only player to touch the puck.

Awesome.

Ontario's netminder Darling makes the save. And 35 other saves, too.

Ontario gets a penalty.

Parnham takes the faceoff in Ontario's zone.

Nothing.

Ontario gets another penalty, and Shea gets his second power play goal of the night.

4-1.

We actually ended up with a shot of the goal right before it went in.

Nice!

Points to Snatch and Bartley on the assists.

Then, Utah gets a penalty and Ontario scores.

Hogeboom, again.

End of second. 4-2, Grizzlies.

THIRD PERIOD

The boys warm up on the ice.

The Grizzlies need to hold their lead.

In fact, our fan chant of the game is: "Don't give up your lead! Don't give up your lead!"

This was from some guy sitting behind us.

We laughed - sure. But we agreed.

Beljo along the boards.

Ontario gets some penalties.

Nothing.

Action in the neutral zone.

Kotsy gets in a fight.

Nice.

O'Keefe makes the save.

Then Vlady gets one. 5-2.
May picks up his 4th point of the night on the assist.

Ontario battles, but they can't get it past Utah's defense.
Man, check out that awesome defense.

Perry gets the empty netter.
Assists to Parnham and O'Keefe on that.
Excellent.

Game.

6-2, Grizzlies.

Stars of the Game:

1. May

2. Shea

3. Kotsy

Nice to see some new stars of the game! (Not that we'd complain either way . . .)

NOTES

Meh. We had some earlier, but then we went to the Festival of Trees.
And the game starts in 90 minutes, so . . .

Go Grizzlies!

Utah Grizzlies vs Las Vegas Wranglers Post Game 11/20/09

What a win.

It's nice to see the boys prove they can still play a mean game without their top two scorers.

I mean, we knew they had it in them. We just didn't know if they did.

Multiple point nights for Hunter and Perry; first game, first goal for Parnham; and deadly special teams on the power play (3/5) and PK (0/4). Not to mention the awesome penalty shot by Vlady at the end of the game or O'Keefe's shut out.

And all of this in front of a 9000+ crowd. Nice.

The official Utah Grizzlies post game is up at their site, the gamesheet at ECHL.com, and our song and dance is below.

PreGame Introductions: Pack the House, indeed! We didn't take as many pictures because we were behind the netting. Anthem pictures:

FIRST PERIOD

30 seconds in Pavli gets into a fight.

Wow.

We're thinking this is going to be a wild game.

As soon as Pavli's out of the box, Gannon picks one up for high sticking.

1:36 later, Bartley joins him for tripping.

5-on-3 with two of our blueliners in the box.

Crap.

But the boys kill it with style.

Both teams are looking pretty good in the 1st.

Vegas started out strong, but the Grizzlies start to control the game about halfway through the period.

Vegas gets a penalty.

Grizzlies waste no time capitalizing.

N00b Parnham gets the goal on the power play. 1-0.

First game, first goal.

We're starting to like this kid.

Points on the assists to n00b Hughes and n00b Beljo.

We didn't know Beljo would be able to play.

But we're glad he is.

Kotsy plays some defense.

Nearing the end of the 1st, May knocks one in.

But they don't count it. Rude.

High stick on the puck.

Whatevs.

End of first. 1-0, Grizzlies.

First Intermission: Little kids play hockey. Adorable.

SECOND PERIOD

Vegas takes an early penalty.

And May makes up for his uncounted goal. 2-0.

Points to Hunter and Perry.

The only bad thing about this period, is that we were sitting behind the Grizzlies' net.

The puck rarely came down our way.

Dale was all over the ice.

Damn.

Everywhere the puck was, Dale was.

Awesome shifts from this kid.

The boys dominated this period.

Seriously. 18 SOG to Vegas's 3.

Ouch, Vegas.

We know we haven't said enough about our blueliners so far this year.

They're pretty incredible.

And their play kind of says it all.

Late in the 2nd, Grizzlies get another power play opportunity.

And Hunter buries it. 3-0.

Points to Maxwell and Hunter on the assists.

Both Perry and Hunter just picked up multipoint nights.

O'Keefe in goal.

Vegas gets another penalty at the end of the 2nd.

Grizzlies will start the 3rd with 1:24 left in it.

End of second. 3-0, Grizzlies.

Second Intermission: Ummmm . . . here's a picture of the crowd.

THIRD PERIOD

Vegas came out with a vengence.

At first we wondered if Utah would keep up.

We stopped taking pictures at this point and opted to watch the game.

Utah started out with a partial power play.

Nothing.

Vegas was pretty amazing at chasing the Grizzlies down in their own end.

Vlady had some amazing shifts.

Grizzlies get another power play.

Nothing.

Vegas is starting to pick things up, but it's too little too late.

Grizzlies are back on their game.

Then, Brooks goes to the box for Interference.

Joni had a few strokes, but . . .

Killed.

Hughes follows shortly after for hooking.

Killed beautifully.

Vegas had no chance on this one. They couldn't even keep it in.

Then, as Vegas is setting up a shot, Vlady swoops in.

Vlady's tripped on the breakaway.

Penalty shot.

Vlady buries it. 4-0.

You could see it going in before he even shot it.

Ouzas had no chance. Which is the perfect theme of the game.

Game.

4-0, Grizzlies.

Stars of the Game

1. O'Keefe with the shutout

2. Hunter with one goal, one assist

3. Perry with two assists.

NOTES

Nice to see the n00bs holding their own. We had a hunch that Parnham would get a goal in this game, we just didn't realize it would be the first one.

We need to pay attention to the lines tonight so we can make some new fantasy lines. We've got at least 3 new faces to work with and we're not familiar with their methods yet. However Colley and Curcio set them up last night was pretty sweet by us - no complaints here. We love the idea of a Kotsy-somebody-Pavli line, we just need to figure out a third person. for that.

Kind of administrative, but we know our comments are messed up on the page. We're working on fixing that. Sorry. :(

That's all for now.

Go Grizzlies!

Game Day: Utah Grizzlies vs Las Vegas

We're running out of things to say about Vegas.

You'd think we could come up with something after a week.

Nope.

Utah Grizzlies have lost both of their top scorers to call-ups. Vegas hasn't really been untouched in that department either. We're hoping this will even out the odds. Yo's game day blog covers this in a litle more depth.

On the defense end, it sounds like Brooks is back. He was pretty solid defensively last year, so we're hoping to see this from him tonight. Also, the Grizzlies confirmed our Parnham and Hughes rumors from earlier this week. They sound like they will be good additions. Nice.

Beljo won't be in a Grizzlies jersey tonight. Apparently, he still has work permits and stuff to deal with.

We really don't have much else to say today.

We've been dishing all week, what with the call-ups, trades, and signings.

We can't even think of any good predictions.

So . . .

Go Grizzlies!

Brett Parnham to join Utah Grizzlies from OHL, Bobby Hughes from AHL

We didn't get to listen to all of Grizzlies' Live last night because apparently 1230 AM does not work in North Utah County. Grr.
But what we did hear rocked. Woot, Pavli and Kotsy!

It sounds like the Utah Grizzlies are getting some new blood from the OHL and some sent down from the AHL to help cover the holes made by Kinasewich and Sixsmith moving up in the hockey world. Here's 2 of the n00bs to the team.

Brett Parnham is joining the Utah Grizzlies from the Oshawa Generals in the OHL. We don't know if he played for them this season, but last season he racked up 76 points (50 goals, 26 assists) in 56 games. Nice.



Bobby Hughes is also joining the boys from Bridgeport where he's played 5 games so far this year.

And yes, we were correct about Caria being traded to Florida. Utah Grizzlies posted the news late yesterday afternoon. Enter Beljo, exit Caria.

While we still have mixed emotions on that trade, we can say that Jadran Beljo has been playing in Europe with the Medveščak Zagreb so far this season. That's former Grizzlies defenseman Andy Sertich's current team.

We miss Serty.

In other semi-related Grizzlies news, Abbotsford beat Hamilton last night, 4-1. Ouch! We didn't hear much on Meyers, but Snatch had 1 SOG. It went wide of the net, but was apparently close enough to make the announcer Derek Wills excited. (Yes, we were listening.)

Speaking of exciting, it sounds like the Bulldogs had a smoother night last night in Abbotsford than they did a couple of days ago. We snagged this from their Twitter:

Bulldogs outworked and outplayed by the Heat last night...rematch in Abbotsford tonight. The team isn't skating this morning.
Curtis Sanford will start, Mathieu Carle is on his way to Abbotsford from Montreal and will play. No fires or earthquakes yet today LOL

Wills called the game last night the 3rd natural disaster to happen for the Bulldogs since arriving in Abbotsford: hotel fire, earthquake, then their 4-1 loss.

And a little Sixsmith news . . . sort of. Bridgeport finally decided to post an article on signing Sixsmith to a P.T.O. so we're posting the link: Sixsmith Joins Sound Tigers.

We'll post more Grizzlies related news if we find it!

But that's all for now.

Go Grizzlies!

Utah Grizzlies News: Caria traded to Florida?!

Okay, we're not happy about this, but . . .

We're going to be as objective and diplomatic as possible.

And not mention the Kotsopoulos trade of 2009.

Word has it Caria's being traded to the Florida Everblades of the ECHL for Jadran Beljo, who has yet to see ice time for Florida.

Wait, what?

We're hoping we have bad information on this one.

No such luck.

We received an email from Woody Wommack, who covers the Florida Everblades for the Naples Daily News.

I wanted to give you a heads up on a trade that just went down between Florida and Utah. The Grizzlies send Matt Caria to the Everblades for the rights to Jardan Beljo. All the details are on my blog, if you could link to my post that would be awesome.

You got it, Woody. Blades' Blog.

It looks like we'll be needing to add some American Conference blogs to our list ASAP.

It sounds like this is the real deal.

So far our coaching staff has given us no reason to doubt them.

They seem to genuinely want to help the boys develop their talent and move up in the hockey system.

In Colley and Curcio we trust.

We're going to miss Caria.

It sounds like he'll be taking the ice tomorrow for Florida, along with former Grizzlies' forward Rob Hennigar.

Luck, Matt!

Go Grizzlies!

Everblades swing deal to acquire Matt Caria from Utah