Trenton Devils


Thursday, November 1, 2007

T-Devils 1-2 to start 5-game Road Trip

After opening the season with three straight home games the T-Devils have embarked on a 5-game road trip and have just one win in three games thus far.

They opened up their 9-day trip away from Sovereign Bank Arena with back-to-back games at Cincinnati. After dropping the first game 5-3, the T-Devils came back to split the series with the Cyclones with a 2-1 win the following night.

They had a chance to win both games but fell short in a comeback effort in game one. Trailing 3-1, center Jim Henkle scored a pair of goals, including once on the power play, to tie the game at 3-3. However, Cincinnati scored 40 seconds into the third period when Bryan Schmidt blasted a one-timer past Jason Smith for a power play goal.

Timing seems to be a theme here in the early going of this season; and not in a good way. There have been a couple games that the T-Devils have either battled back to tie the game, or have led, only to see their opponent come back with a late-game goal or score right after they do. It could be a sign of a young team which it will hopefully learn as it goes along because giving up late goals can be devestating to a team, especially when they battle hard to tie the game.



Game two against the Cyclones was the opposite of what I just talked about. The T-Devils had been trailing 1-0 since the first period, but got two goals in a span of 1:08 to lift the team to a 2-1 victory and earning Jason Smith his first professional win as a goaltender making 33 saves.

Stephen Wood tied the game at 1-1 on a 5-on-4 power play, then Ryan Gunderson threw the puck towards the net and it deflected off a body in traffic to record his first goal as a professional just over a minute later, which was the game-winner.

A good sign in this game was the penalty kill, which was 6-for-6.



The third game of the trip, against the Johnstown Chiefs, was tied 1-1 in the third period until Jason Paige gave the T-Devils their first lead of the game when he deflected a Beau McLaughlin wrsit shot through the 5-hole of Chiefs goalie Ryan Nie.

But once again late goals doomed the T-Devils. Johnstown pushed the issue for the remainder of the period and ended up scoring twice in under three minutes to get a 3-2 win.



Trenton can finish with a winning record if it sweeps its final two games, tomorrow at the Wheeling Nailers and Saturday at the Dayton Bombers.

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