Sunday, October 19, 2008

Brandon 3 Broncos 1 / Smith Impressing in AHL

Going into last night's contest I knew it was going to be an uphill battle for the Broncos.


Without Matt Tassone, Taylor Vause, Cody Eakin, Ryan Molle, Joel Rogers, not to mention Jesse Dudas and Travis Yonkman, the Broncos were under-manned against an over-powering Wheat Kings squad.


The visitors almost got through the 1st period unscathed but gave up a goal with .56 seconds on the clock. It wasn't pretty. Get the puck on net from the point and go jamming for rebounds. Not pretty, but effective. That goal seem to hurt the Broncos effort in the 2nd period.


Brayden Schenn scored on a nice shot on a short-handed 2-on-1 break with a snapper over the blocker of Mark Guggenberger.


The Broncos hung in there but trailed 2-0 after two.


Brandon controlled much of third and increased the lead to 3-0 when Jay Fehr scored on a one-on-one by electing to shoot from a sharp angle with Spencer McAvoy between himself and the goal.


It looked like after 91 regular season games, the Broncos string of not being shutout would come to an end. The streak which extends to late in the 06/07 season was in big time jeopardy until a 4-0n-4 situation resulted in a Broncos powerplay with a 1:17 to play.


The 4-on-3 quickly became a 5-0n-3 with the Broncos pulling the goaltender for an extra attacker. A quick set-up to Keegan Dansereau who blasted a one-timer from the left face-off circle put the Broncos on the board with 1:02 to play.


The Broncos have now dropped six in a row in Brandon going back to the 06/07 season.


A few other notes:


- Brad Hoban made his season debut coming off a broken ankle in the off-season. He wasn't expected to play on this trip but was forced into action with the team only dressing 17 skaters. He played well considering it was his first game since late in the 07/08 regular season.


- Without question Brandon has the most explosive offense in the Eastern Conference. End of story.


- The Broncos hope to have at least Tayor Vause (illness), Matt Tassone (shoulder), and Joel Rogers (leg) back for next weekend. Possibly we could see Travis Yonkman and Ryan Molle.


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Last year's captain Zack Smith scored a goal and was named the 1st star in the Binghamton Senators 3-1 win over the Philadelphia Phantoms last night.

For Smith it was his third goal of the season for the baby Sens. By all accounts Ottawa has a close eye on Zack's progress and could be a call-up shortly if the Sens have some injuries up front.

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