Blue Tongues Defeat Winless Adrenaline

The Blue Tongues faced off against arch rivals Adelaide Adrenaline at Iceland Bundall on Saturday night. The undefeated Adrenaline were expected to be a difficult team to play, with their impressively accurate passing and lightning fast skaters allowing the Adrenaline to defeat every team that skates onto the ice.

With a difficult task at hand, the Blue Tongues called on goaltender Milan Novysedlak, who was the starting goaltender for the Blue Tongues in 2005 and 2006 and has been serving as the team's assistant coach for the past two seasons. Novysedlak was phenomenal in the crease, and brought to the game a touch of NHL great Dominic Hasek with his acrobatic style of play and puckhandling abilitiy. Facing 50 shots on goal, Novysedlak gave the Blue Tongues the best chance at outscoring the Adrenaline.

Matt Stubbert opened the scoring for the game with 42 seconds left in the first period, assisted by Trevor Walsh (playing against his previous teammates) and Brad Smulders to send the teams back to the locker room at the end of the first 1-0.

The Adrenaline came out firing in the second, putting 34 shots on goaltender Novysedlak. The Blue Tongues killed off five penalites, three times giving Adelaide a 2 man advantage before the Adrenaline's Jeremy Beirnes scored even strength with 3.43 left in the second. The Blue Tongues quickly hit back, when Henrik Ivarsson passed to Dave Upton, who scored a beautiful goal on a breakaway with 2.38 left in the period. 79 seconds later, Andre Selander sent an amazing slapshot past Adelaide's Olivier Martin from a Brad Smulders' pass, giving the Blue Tongues a 3-1 lead into the third period.

Frustration showed on both sides in the final period of the game, as the intensity rose sky-high. 11.27 left in the third, Adelaide's Sami Montere brought the score up to 3-2. Adrenaline's Don Grover and the Blue Tongues' Andre Selander were both dismissed from the game for fighting only 3 minutes left in the game. This increased the intensity even more! In the last minute, the Adrenaline pulled Olivier Martin, giving them an extra attacker on the ice. It was for naught when Blue Tongues' Brad Smulders scored an empty net goal with 21 seconds left in the game. The Blue Tongues giving the Adrenaline their first loss of the season, 4-2.

The Blue Tongues face the Adelaide Adrenaline again on Sunday 7 June, 2009 at Iceland Bundall at 4pm.