| 12 November 2011
A late goal from Maxime Sauve would be all the Providence Bruins needed to edge the Manchester Monarchs 1-0 Friday night at the Dunkin Donuts Center. Anton Khudobdin made 30 saves in the victory.
“I haven’t found the pattern of our hockey club yet,” Coach Cassidy said, “I just see a pattern that we are playing better.”
The opening stanza saw no action due in part to some excellent saves from Khudobin. He stood on his head to make a save on a Manchester player at the 10:44 mark. Later in the period he kept the score at 0-0 with an awkward kick save with only 30.9 seconds remaining. Both teams went to the dressing room without goals and shots at 11-10 in favor of Providence.
“In terms of energy, positional play and territorial play, I thought we were good in the first,” Cassidy said following the game Friday night. “I think as a group we’re creating more and there’s some better chances and we have more of the puck. Tonight we only needed one.”
Neither team scored in the second period either but both had their fair share of chances. Josh Hennessy had one of the best chances for the Bruins about three minutes in when he had a 1-on-1 but the puck bounced off of Jones and he could not bury the rebound. Just a few minutes later Justin Azevedo came down the right wing with speed and rang the post. After 40 minutes of play the game remained scoreless.
The 0-0 score reflected a lot of defensive play from both sides, something the Bruins have improved on with their young players on the blue line.
“I think our defensive game from the first week has come so much further in terms of our young D defending; we manage the puck better and we track better,” Cassidy said. “Bad news is, we still have our offensive struggles.”
Both teams came out hard in the final period but despite chances neither could find the back of the net. Manchester’s best chance probably came while on the power play when they had the puck in Khudobin’s crease but could not knock it home despite two players battling for it. Kyle MacKinnon had a breakaway for the Bruins just a few moments later but Martin Jones denied him with a blocker save with about 10 minutes to go in the game.
“Just like everyone else, I had my fingers crossed,” Cassidy said of watching the breakaway goal, “When you try to deke going that fast, sometimes the puck goes off on you.”
From there, the two teams were notably frustrated with one another. At 14:29, a player not known for fighting, Colby Cohen dropped the gloves with Ray Kaunisto.
“I think Colby needs it. He’d be the first to admit he’s not on top of his game,” Cassidy said. He went on to say that maybe his uncharacteristic fight may have been him taking out that frustration on someone or it was at least an attempt. He hopes that perhaps Cohen will have a better game Saturday because of it.
It may not have been pretty but it shifted momentum and Sauve scored just over 30 seconds later at 15:04. With a nice backhand that he called a "simple play," Sauve got Providence on the scoreboard with help from Josh Hennessy and Jamie Tardif.
"It was good play, good passing and good everything," Sauve said on what earned his team the victory.
Last season's second top goal scorer for the team has not been in the line up much this season due to injury but he hopes that this goal will help get him in the groove to start scoring more goals.
Manchester kept battling and the pieces were coming together for them as the clock was ticking down. With just a minute to go, a hard shot from Andrei Loktionov grazed the post but the score remained the same.
“To be honest, I thought they were going to score at the end with the chances they had,” Cassidy said.
The goal from Sauve is all the team would need in the final minutes of the game to get the win in the first of three games this weekend where they hope to keep winning.
“When you’re a coach you’re always thinking you have got to get points every weekend. You can’t afford to fall behind and have a bad one,” Cassidy said, “The good teams obviously get multiple points and that’s our goal every weekend; you want to win two out of three in the long run.”
Providence will take on the Portland Pirates Saturday night and the Worcester Sharks on Sunday as they all battle for points within the Atlantic Division.
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