The boys were on the road to Columbus for their final scheduled tournament of the year. The tournament promised ‘A/AA’ teams from four different US locations and was poised to be a real test for the team.
Friday’s first game had them up against the North Pittsburgh Wild. It was a tight game all the way through with the Storm carrying a majority of the play. An electrifying rush by defenseman Tyler Mayer, busting through the Wild defense, gave the Storm a 1-0 lead. Pittsburgh went on to score two unanswered goals to make it 2-1 when Grayson Fraumeni scored off the rush going upstairs with the puck after a nice pass from Thomas Larsen. However, Pittsburgh broke the teams heart with 10 seconds left leading to a 3-2 loss. Mayer got player of the game for his strong game on defense as well as his nice goal.
The second game of the day had the Storm against the Canton-Akron Jets. This was a tough game for the team and without a doubt were suffering from a letdown from the previous game. Zack Hammond was knocked out of the game with a wrist injury after a questionable hit and the boys struggled to keep up with a skilled Jet team, leading them to fall behind 3-0. Penalty trouble for the Jets led to a 5 on 3 powerplay. Foreshadowing future games in the tournament, the boys moved the puck around beautifully leading to Declan Bosveld slamming a puck home to give the team a chance for a comeback. However, a few bad bounces and the Jets skill led to them putting three more goals past Jaxon Keller making it a 6-1 final. Bosveld earned the golden helmet for his strong play in the game, and for his strong play over the past several weeks.
After the loss to the Jets, Coach Mark gave the boys a little pep talk about the importance of defensive positioning and being aggressive on the puck. I can assure you if there was a test at the end of it the boys would have gotten an A+ because in the third game of the tournament, they came out and played in a physical, aggressive way against the Frederick Freeze. This strong start was capped off by Owen Irvine blocking a puck at the blueline and then racing down on a breakaway and scoring a beauty of an opening goal of the game. It was a full team effort, including that of Carter Russell who was stellar in net making some phenomenal saves, including his best save of the year on a wrap around where he slid across crease using his stick to block the shot. 99% of the crowd assumed the puck was going in, but Carter knew different! Jackson Schneckenberger was the team’s best defensive player taking the Coach’s words to heart. He constantly thwarted Freeze attempts with stick on stick checks, had his stick in passing lanes to stop passes and made smooth plays out of the defensive end leading to good offensive chances. On top of the aggressive defensive play, the boys started passing the puck around the rink like a pro team, with D to D passes and then up to the forwards making it very difficult for Frederick to contain them. Frederick did finally get one past Russell, but the team didn’t fold, they kept playing hard to the end of the game. To put this effort in perspective, Frederick previously tied the Jets and beat the Wild, 8-1. It was an impressive effort against an A-level team.
This led to the Consolation Finals versus the Canton-Akron Jets. To back things up a bit, the night before the boys and their families attended the Columbus Blue Jackets vs. Seattle Kraken game for some team building and got noticed on the Nationwide Centre Scoreboard due to Sean Hammond’s smooth dance moves, the Hammond supplied CBJ toques and the gold and blue ‘E’ jersey’s. The bird’s eye view from their seats allowed the boys to see the game from a different perspective including positioning and passing. From the drop of the puck the boys were on fire and the Jets must have wondered who they were facing, considering the outcome of their previous game. It seemed like the months of coaching, the pep talk after game 2 and the team building from the CBJ game had all come together at once. Urged to shoot the puck more, the boys did that. Alessio Incitti walked in over the blue line and ripped a low wrister past the Jets goalie to make it 1-0. Urged to be ‘hard on the puck’ they did that. Particularly hard work by Cooper Autterson, Sam Hammel and Declan Bosveld led to the Jets having a hard time getting through the neutral zone or retrieving the puck in their end. Then it was Thomas Larsen who exerted his will on the Jets. He was relentless on the puck all game causing turnovers all over the ice, but his hard work in the neutral zone led to him grabbing the puck, using a toe drag to fool two defensemen and then walked in on the goalie to make it 2-0. Then he did it again to make it 3-0. Then it was Patrick Nantais who was moved to center after the Hammond injury playing a big role in the game. Patrick was hard on the puck and used his skill to make great passes almost leading to a Owen Irvine goal. Most importantly, he used a quick release wrister to snipe the top corner of the net from the slot to make it 4-0. Urged to pass the puck they did that. Larsen retrieved the puck on the forecheck, moved it to Grayson Fraumeni who quickly moved it to Tyler Mayer on a D to D pass leading to a heavy wrist shot from the point that beat the goalie to make it 5-1. Urged to play their positions, they did that. Cooper Autterson is a hard working forward always willing to get his nose dirty. During the NHL game his Dad pointed out to him how they played their positions. Cooper came out and played a very responsible game including doing key work on a penalty kill, working the puck out of trouble several times. After the Jets made it 5-2, it was Nantais again shooting the puck past the goalie to put the game out of reach. There were so many good plays it’s hard to mention them all, but another highlight was Grayson Fraumeni slicing through the Jets defense like a hot knife through butter near the end of the game. It also has to be mentioned that Jaxon Keller was excellent in net making several big saves. For his strong play, Patrick Nantais won the player of the game.
While a 1-2-1 record in a tournament might be seen as the result of an unsuccessful tournament. The reality is that the last two games had the team making a big jump in play with the boys showing all the key elements to finish the Bluewater regular season in a strong way and get ready for the playoffs.
Article by Coach Larsen