Thursday, November 20, 2008

Russia Upsets the QMJHL

The QMJHL is losing ground to the rest of the CHL in terms of talent and playing style. They keep losing ground as they fall to Team Russia 4-3 last night.

SAINT JOHN, Wednesday, November 19, 2008 – The Russian Selects registered four goals in a 4-3 victory to claim their first win of the 2008 ADT Canada-Russia Challenge in front of a sellout crowd of 6,451 rabid fans assembled at Harbour Station in Saint John.

Team QMJHL got a two-man advantage with seven minutes to go in the first period but was unfortunately unable to capitalize. Winger Pavel Chernov jumped on a loose puck in the neutral zone to brake towards goaltender Jake Allen, beating him with a top-shelf wrist shot on his glove side.

Maxime Sauvé tied the score up at one in the opening minutes of the second period, but Pavel Chernov recorded his second goal of the game at 3:05 to give the lead back to the Russian Team.

Mikhail Pashnin made it 3-1 after he let a thundering slap-shot go from the blueline that stumped the Canadian netminder. Team QMJHL battled back as Luke Adam went hard to the net with a Russian defender on his back and flipped the puck past a sprawling Sergey Gayduchenko.

Near the end of the third period, Evgeny Dadonov put the game out of reach.

Paul Byron closed the scoring with his first goal of the ADT Challenge.

“I think we played a pretty good game, but the Russian goaltender made several key saves that stumped our comeback attempts. We were never able to come back,” said team captain, Kevin Marshall.

The third game of the 2008 ADT Canada-Russia Challenge will be presented tomorrow night in Guelph, Ontario as Team OHL battles the delegation of Russian All-Stars. Fans can watch all of the action on Rogers Sportsnet.

Boxscore

How can you lose to a team like this is beyond me. I still question why Nicola Riopel wasn't named to the Team is beyond me. Jake Allen is a very good goalie but I would of left Maxime Clermont off the roster this year.

I think Hockey Canada came away very unimpressed from the QMJHL All-Stars.

That's My Take

(Nathan also is a writer for Maineiacs Post to Post and the Maine Hockey Journal. He can be reached at fourniern@students.nescom.edu)

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