After talking about the Terriers' good job in finding Junior B gems in my game preview earlier today, Yorkton got all four goals from Jr. B grads: Jeremy Johnson (2), Jamie Vlanich and Zak Majkowski.
Ben Johnstone had the Bruins' lone goal, scoring in his second straight game. It was a beauty as he took a slick pass from Michael Hengen while driving to the net, slipped to his forehand and went roof daddy over Kale Thomson's glove. He might have been the Bruins' best forward tonight.
While the Bruins outshot the Dogs 38-34, I agreed with Keith's assessment in the post-game interview, which is that their forwards didn't do enough dirty work in digging for pucks and creating scoring chances. Instead, they often sat back waiting to set up the perfect play, and as we all know, that doesn't work out too often.
There were some shifts especially in the third where some Bruins just floated around out there, waiting for the play to come to them. That's not the way to try to build on a late second period goal.
Both Connor Milligan and Brandon Stone made their Bruin debuts tonight. I thought Milligan was for the most part very good, showing the ability to make a good first pass and maintaining pretty good positioning. What impressed me most was that in his first game, he wasn't afraid to take charge out there and communicate with the guys around him. You need those leaders out on the ice, especially with such a young blueline and a guy starting his first SJHL game.
As for Stone, there were a lot of positives to take out of his game. The only goal I could really fault him on was Johnson's first one in the second period when he lunged out of the crease after a loose puck and missed it, which left Johnson the open net.
Majkowski's goal, I think you can lay equally on Stone and the defence. He didn't look ready for the original shot and made the blocker save, but the rebound stayed out front. I thought the D should have been able to clear it, but it stayed right there for Majkowski to tap in.
I thought Stone showed quick lateral movement, a clean butterfly style and he did a good job of handling the puck. He also didn't seem to get rattled when the puck was bouncing around in front.
The Bruins are in Yorkton tomorrow before coming back home for the showcase.
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I decided to try something different tonight. I've seen this done a couple of times with European NHL goalie prospects where bloggers try to give North American fans a sense of how the goalie looks. With it being Brandon Stone's first game as a Bruin, I shot some video of him and put it together into a compilation.
Rest assured this will not be a regular feature haha.
Here you go. Look for the big glove save at the end.
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