This was another fast paced game by the Falcons, who suddenly are having a tough time putting the biscuit in the basket.
The roster shake ups continued, with John Moore being recalled by the Columbus Blue Jackets. This left the defensive pairings looking like this:
The defense has been playing well. Not great, but certainly well and it should continue to improve once the Jackets blueliners get healthy.
Also, something that didn’t make it to the stat sheet tonight was that the Falcons hit 4 posts along the way.
For the second consecutive night, the Falcons got good goaltending from somebody who wasn’t even on the team’s radar just a few short weeks ago. Danny Taylor cleared up his immigration issues and has been paired up with Manny Legace in guarding the Falcons cage.
Wade MacLeod got the Falcons on the board at 5:49 of the second period when he potted a real goal scorer’s goal:
10 22 11 goals (via SpfdFalconsAHL)
The game remained at 1-0 until Jonathan Audy-Marchessault scored his first pro goal to tie the game at one.
A short time later, after Mats Zuccarello was laid out at the blue line, Adam Mair and Blake Parlett threw down the mitts:
10 22 11 fights (via SpfdFalconsAHL)
The Whale were holding a territorial advantage in the waning parts of the third period when Zuccarello was camped out behind the goal line. I’ve seen him do this before, yet here it was again; he played a bank shot off the back side of Danny Taylor’s right leg and the puck bounced off of Taylor and into the net to give the Whale a 2-1 lead, which they held on to for the victory.
1 – Cameron Talbot (CT) – goaltender
2 – Danny Taylor (SPR) – goaltender
3 – Mats Zuccarello (CT)
While the defeat was in no way pleasing, the Falcons faced yet another hot goaltender. The posts they hit showed that they were very close with their scoring chances and but for a bounce or two, definitely could have won this hockey game.
The teams wrap up this home-and-home Sunday afternoon at 3PM at the XL Center in Hartford, CT.