Week 3 Report
HEADLINES
The Collective Squeeze Into First Place With 3-0 Week
Grant Donovan Scores a Triple Hattrick
HB and Preds Set League Record In Goaltenders' Battle
The Collective
The Collective ended up with a 3-0 record this week. They were the 3rd team in 3 weeks to go 3-0 for the day. It started with a low scoring close game against the Predators that was won on the strength of Mike Moore's hattrick. The 2nd win came against the Flames where Grant Donovan set a new record for goals, with 9. The Collective's 14 goals during the game was also a new standard. The 3rd win came during another close game. HB took a late lead with about 2 minutes left before Brian Merrithew tied the game with about a minute left, then Grant scored the winner with about 5 seconds left. It was Grant's 12th goal of the day and he led his team's scoring with 13 points. The 3 wins put the Collective in 1st place on goal differential.
The Predators
The Predators went 1-1-1 for the day with Kelvin Hoyt only allowing 11 goals. This brought Kelvin's leading goals against average down to an even 4. Vince MacDonald scored his 2nd hattrick of the season in a win over the Flames. The tie came against HB with a new record for fewest goals in a game, finishing 2-2. This was definitely a goaltenders battle. The Preds were missing Mark Cress and Tony Roberts for the 2nd week this season. Last week the team went 3-0 with Mark in the lineup. This week Kevin Stafford provided his team's most offense with 5 points. Vince scored his team's most goals with 3. Despite being in 3rd place, the Predators are only 1 point away from 1st.
The Flames
The Flames got their 2nd win of the season in their 2nd game of the day after losing a close game against the Predators 6-5. Troy MacDonald led the way with 4 goals in the 8-6 win. Troy also scored 4 goals in the next game, giving him 9 goals on the day, but the game turned into a Flames disaster, giving up 14 goals. The Collective's Grant Donovan has quickly become the Flames nemesis scoring 15 goals in the last two meetings. The Flames bright spot on the day was Troy's offense. He had 3 assists along with his 9 goals and led his team's scoring for the day with 12 points, including two 4 goal games. Carl Brown, known more for scoring goals seems to be taking on the roll of set up guy, tied for 2nd place in the league with 10 first assists.
The Hung and the Breastless
The Hung and Breastless, after winning 5 of their first 6 games, came out of this week with only 1 point in a tie against the Predators, 2-2. The tie was an appropriate finish for this goaltenders battle. It was Peter Wolters first game of the season without a hattrick. Peter got his 4th hattrick in the next game against the Collective, to give HB a 5-4 lead late in the game, but a couple of last minute goals against gave them the loss. Doug Taylor led his team's scoring for the day with 7 points, which included 3 goals. HB gave up 1st place, but only by a small margin in goal differential. This early in the season it would be safe to say there's a tie for 1st place.