After the 1st period, Team Orange is up 1-0. Were playing 2, 25-minute periods with continuous play up until the final 5 minutes. Any penalty is a penalty shot.
An interesting moment occurred early in the 1st when Top 5 pick Nino Niederreiter (“El Nino” or “El Fantastico”) was hit hard into the bench opening. Only a little hitting here early.
The first and only goal of the frame was scored midway when Isles 2009 4th Round Draft Pick Casey Cizikas created a two-on-none with defensemen, camp invite and Jericho, NY native Danny Markowitz. Cizikas got Blue goalie Anders Nilsson down and fed it across for Markowitz to left over Nilsson’s prone pad.
Making good impressions in the first were David Toews and Kirill Kabanov for Blue, the assist man Cizikas and Travis Hamonic, along with Markowitz and Niederreiter for Orange. Orange has been doing more dump and chase, and sustaining pressure, while Blue has done a good job of creating offensive chances on the breakout.
Attendance is around 5,000 for tonight’s game, we’ll get an exact figure later.
We’ll have more analysis and some interviews from the locker room later!