Rock Beat Bandits!

No clever puns. You can think what you want, but yesterday's "What a Rush" header was a piece of blogging gold after the big win at the ACC on Friday night. The Rock simply came out what they had to do last night and held John Tavares and Mark Steinhuis to a combined 6 points, and only one goal.

With Buffalo fans raving about Ken Montour, it was Bob Watson relieving Mike Poulin early and delivering another sub 10 goal performance. Montour wasn't bad, but he wasn't Watson's equal, just by the sheer volume of goals he let in. But, I was listening on a choppy AM radio feed that wouldn't allow me to make out half the words that were being said, so if I am wrong, feel free to correct me. Glenn Clark deserves big praise for pulling Poulin after a weak start. Normally I feel coaches don't really control the game, that if the players do their job, their can be a certain predictability, but that was an important move.

The Rock's offence was clicking again, which surprised me somewhat, although there has been some success against a tough, but sometimes sloppy Buffalo defence. Josh Sanderson and Aaron Wilson both had 4 goals, and Blaine Manning had 5 assists. Ryan Benesch chipped in with what I heard was a quiet 6 points. That basically sums up Benesch's season right there.

Rob Marshall with another big game statistically (1/2/3 2 LB) and Jimmy Veltman had 10 loose balls in his last visit to Buffalo in the regular season. There is a decent chance that these teams could be playoff opponents.

Another note, Kasey Beirnes currently has his worst shooting percentage in 3 years. He is on pace for 32 big points, and really, really needs to justify trading a first rounder last year in the package to get him. If he makes more plays like he did on Friday, where he ran over an Edmonton defender, thus creating space for himself, and scoring a nice goal, he would be valuable. But those are two far and in between.

But again, goaltending was a huge reason for the win. The Rock need two big wins following an off week, when the struggling Knighthawks come to town, followed by a makeup game in Philadelphia.

Trade deadline on Tuesday too, I wonder what Mr. Kloepfer will do? Probably something to disrupt the results the Rock posted on the weekend.