Frederikshavn 1 December

INITIAL REACTION
Fredrickshaven Whitehawks
December 1, 2009

This is the first series of the thoughts from after the game, and we will make this a regular part of our Post Game Report in the future.

Obviously this was a disappointing game to lose in Overtime.  The White Hawks played as we expected, a team will be patient and wait in the middle zone and wait to generate offense opportunities from turnovers in this area of the ice.  They did a good job on this part of the game as we know they are not a team that will forecheck consistently throughout the game.  When we made good decisions through the neutral zone we dominated with several Grade A chances directly in front of the goalie.  The goaltender, in my opinion, was the first star of the game.  It’s simply a matter of taking advantage of these scoring chances when they arise. 

I thought we played more physical, a good physical game.  Most noticeable was Thomas Lilholt and Anders Feddersen who threw some clean, hard checks.  Christian Zink and Matthias Holmlund played a safe and solid game on defense and continue to grow with each game.  Brian Greer continues to provide solid goaltending, but unfortunately we have not given him the offensive support.  It is very difficult to win games when we score only one goal. 

Accountability

Several people were commenting directly to me after game on the referee’s decisions at the end of the game.  I explained that I was also puzzled by the interference penalty call but there seems to be a lack of accountability on their part. I have seen many instances in the past where two teams battle hard all game long to a tie and then during the last 10 minutes the officials allow both teams to decide the game by waving off calls for both sides.  This seemed to be the case tonight until an interference penalty with thirty seconds to go in the match, where the Whitehawks player is two meters offside to initiate the play!  This is simply unthinkable.  In such a critical part of the game, it would be most professional to come to the bench and explain to the coach what has occurred.  This is the difference with the NHL games that are being televised on TV2Sport.  The referee would never want to be responsible for determining the outcome of the game and if they had to make a penalty call, they would explain to the coaches in this critical part of the game why they had chosen to make the call and why it was necessary.  This is where the professionalism of the Danish league needs to grow.  It is great that many teams are now showing highlights on the internet and I believe our site will have this feature in the coming weeks.  I anticipate that this will create some accountability for the officials and more opportunity to improve their performance. 

To close the initial reaction, our team played hard enough to generate sufficient scoring opportunities to score the winning goal in the third period.  The Whitehawks goalie played great and gave them more and more time to wait for a break chance in the game.  They did not earn the break but received it anyway and were able to capitalize on the 4 on 3 powerplay.  Simply put, we need to score on our opportunities and then these outside factors will not be the DECIDING factors in the game. 

Check back here soon for Upon Further Review, a new segment following the Initial Reaction which includes more in-depth look at the game after we get a look at the game video.