Hawks Serve Notice, News, HL - Major Atom - A4, 2018-2019, CHL Atom (West London Minor Hockey)

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This Team is part of the 2018-2019 season, which is not set as the current season.
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Jan 26, 2019 | GeoffRead | 553 views
Hawks Serve Notice
The last time the West London Hawks A4 played fellow West Londoners B4 it did not go well. The Hawks had their worst effort of the season and suffered a 10-1 drubbing. So this morning when the Hawks renewed hostilities with B4 they had something to prove. And prove it they did with a convincing 6-3 win.

The Hawks were missing three valued teammates. Hard-working winger Maria Fernanda Pimentel, solid rear-guard Anderson Watt, and the Hawks' best skater on D, Aiden Hayes, were all out with a combination of other obligations, the sniffles, and the vacation blues respectively. Thus, there was the potential for this game to go sideways particularly given the potent offence of the opposition.

But the coaching staff moved Zoe Read back on defence to help out and put together two solid lines up front and the strategy worked. The Hawks started a little slowly and fell behind 2-0 and then 3-1. But by the end of the first period, the Hawks were coming on; after the mid-way point of the game they just plain took over.

The momentum started to swing when B4 took a penalty on a Troy Price rush as Price tried to cut back against the flow and was wiped up by a hard-charging defenceman with an inadvertent bodycheck. The line of Nathan Mason at centre, James Nielsen at left wing, and Owen Askew came over the boards with the defensive pairing of Read and Paul Steele. The results were magical as all five players touched the puck, moved it around, and generated multiple chances. Finally Nielsen worked the puck low to Askew who made a sharp-eyed pass across the crease to Mason who drove the puck home with a nice one-timer.

Yes, the Hawks gave that goal right back when B4's best stickhandler literally went around everyone on the ice less than a minute later on a pretty solo effort. But still, the power play goal gave the Hawks the belief that they could score on B4 and they kept pressing. 

Nielsen, who had a five point night and particularly from the second period on was passing the puck, as his coach said after the game, like he was "Wayne Gretzky out there", found Askew across the crease and the power forward did not miss the mark. 

The second period ended with the Hawks trailing 3-2 but they definitely entered the final frame with the momentum and a sense of optimism and energy on the bench.

Thus, when Askew scored again just 13 seconds in to the third period after another pretty three-way passing play from Nielsen and Mason, the Hawks and their fans erupted. Victory was within their grasp.

Askew made it three in a row and on this one it was just like the coaches drew it up. As the puck was headmanned by Brandon Miles to Nielsen who drove the net hard and fired a good low shot. The goalie made the save but the rebound popped out to Askew who had gone to the net hungry for a rebound with his stick on the ice. He made no mistake firing the puck in for the hat-trick and cementing his status as the player of the game.

The MAN-line (Mason-Askew-Nielsen) wasn't done there though, as Nielsen scored two pretty goals of his own, again off some good passing both from the group on defence and his linemates. The MAN-line was so good, accounting for all six goals, that Coach Read might have to consider keeping them together, even though his natural inclination is to spread the scoring around.

The St. George Line was held off the scoresheet in this one, but Kaelan Walsh between Troy Price and Connor Devlin had a good night nonetheless. This was especially true on teh backcheck where all three came back hard and broke up numerous rushes. One one memorable play Price backchecked hard, knocked the puck off B4's star where Devlin, also backchecking, picked it up and skated it out of the zone. It was the kind of small play that wins hockey games.

The defensive group knew they had a challenge in front of them going into this one without Watt or Hayes, but they rose to the occasion. Steele played exactly how his coaches want him to, moving the puck efficiently up the boards, battling for it in the corner, keeping the puck in at the blueline when he could, and covering the front of the net. Gregory Nicolis too played a very sound game and showed that all the work the team does in practice working on defending the rush is paying off, as he broke up 2-3 good rushes by B4 by backing up efficiently with the rush and stearing the puckhandlers into the non-danger zones. Likewise, Andrew Prato-Duran was his usual formidable self holding the puck in at the blueline and also generally played a controlled game in his own end. Read was a revelation on defence. She got burned once or twice wide by the B4 star but showed no quit usually getting enough of her check to disrupt him and prevent him from scoring. She also has good instincts in her own end - the kind of thing you can't teach - anticipating where the puck was going to go and being there to take it out of harm's way. She was also the defence's best passer on the night, with her head up looking to make the tape to tape pass on the breakout, in the neutral zone, and in the offensive end where she set up 3-4 good chances for the Hawks. On her most memorable play of the night, Read skated the puck out of a scramble in front of the Hawks' net, and carried it all the way down the ice where the Hawks maintained possession and got a good scoring chance.

All that said, Miles once again showed his enormous worth as probably the Hawks' most solid defenceman. He breaks up rushes with such regularity you start to take it for granted that he's going to shut the other team down. He also makes smart plays with the puck and isn't afraid to take the shot when the opportunity presents itself.

This was a great game. The Hawks scored 5 straight goals to roar back from a 3-1 deficit and win convincingly 6-3. They did this by outhustling the other team at both ends of the ice and, just as importantly, by playing like a team. They were unselfish in this game, passing to each other and confounding B4 in the process. They backchecked hard and counted on each other to perform their roles. And goaltender Kayden Keating provided the Hawks with the kind of solid netminding that gave his teammates confidence he was going to make the first stop and give them a chance to win. It was awesome to watch. Certainly, the Hawks served notice that they can play with B4 and I wouldn't be surprised to see these two teams meet up in the playoffs.

Go Hawks go!