We won 2-1 last night, puck drop was at 10:20pm.
Overall it felt like when the Kings only score one goal, we were hammering away but couldn't finish the job. Score sheet had us with 37 SOG, seems to be about right. We started off with a perfect 10 players, so two even lines, and then a few minutes into the game an 11th showed up, a D-man. Grrrrreaaatttt....so we rotated 5 D, not the end of the world, but sucks when you can't get any flow and you can't remember who sat the shift cycle before and what not. We all got enough ice time, but you guys know what I mean. I ended up with 5 or 6 shots from the point, all but one made it through to the goalie, most were wristers but I did get a great clapper off about 2.5' off the ice with a perfect screen in front by one of our star wingers. He lifted his leg as he stood at the top of the crease and the goalie somehow got a piece of it, great positioning by our winger and the goalie. Usually I have been using my 85 flex Warrior Covert (cut down by a couple inches, so probably low 90's flex now), but last night I wanted to switch it up and used my Bauer Vapor APX 67 flex (an intermediate stick, which I didn't have to cut). Holy crap was I excited with how whippy it was. I was able to fling shots with ease with that extra flex. There were a couple situations where I had rushed the puck up and didn't have a lot of room for a shot, but still managed to get a couple shots off with much more velocity than I thought I would due to the extra flex. The stick is also much lighter than my Warrior, so at first it was kind of hard to keep it down on the ice, it actually required cognizant effort to do so.
My new shins and elbows felt pretty good out there too, last night was the first time I used them. The elbows felt a little stiff but I'm sure after another couple of uses they will be fine. The shins were great, the padding at the bottom of the plastic didnt extend down quite as far as my old ones over the tongue of my skate, but that was ok as it didn't impede with the forward flex while skating. One other note, I swapped out the crappy original laces that came with my skates, they were pretty thin and didn't have much grip to them, and they created hot spots throughout the boot. It was a pain to find the sweet spot with them. So when I was at Hockey Giant getting my shins and elbows I picked up some wax laces. These were way better (and I got a size shorter), they were wider too, which allowed for better distribution of tension across the boot/tongue. I was able to snug them up enough to be taught, but not too loose, nor too snug. They held amazingly all game long and my feet didn't have one ounce of discomfort. Just something to think about if you have new skates and feel like they aren't broken in yet, maybe try different laces.
There are only 4 teams in our division and we are tied for first with the team that we tied, both of us are undefeated, however they have more Goals For, so they are sitting atop of the standings.
