An odd mix of sun and cloud greeted the crew today. With these small line-ups as of late, it produces some interesting hockey, and it gives players the opportunity to play around and experiment. Thus, we were in for quite a ride today as Lee announced he would be goaltending. For balance, Noel donned the other set of pads rather than the returning Shem (might this be Shem’s last session?), giving us a most intriguing goaltender match-up that had skaters thinking ‘stats-padder’. In addition, Lee brought along his brand-new 1080 pi HD camera. While the lens would prove to be too big to film through the chain-link, it would come in handy later.

We came into Game 1 with teams of Kyle-Lee-Nathan and Shem-Graeme-Noel. It wasn’t pretty. The game ended in just six minutes, resulting in five points for Kyle and a six-shot shutout with two assists for Lee! Pretty good start to the session for him; not so much for Noel. This prompted an immediate trade for Game 2, with Nathan and Shem switching sides. The trade worked perfectly, as we were treated to four incredibly even games. Not necessarily long games, but even. Graeme and Nathan are just so defensively sound and physically imposing, and they’ve always had great chemistry together. Weathering through the Grenier hurricane, they battled to a 5-3 win in Game 2. Noel was much improved in Game 3, and Lee finally showed some real cracks as Kyle and Shem went up quickly 3-0. Graeme and Nathan just ground back, though, and climbed all the way to a 4-3 lead before Kyle recovered to put home a 5-4 win. By their standard, Lee was shockingly high at .820 and Noel was solid at .755. This would all go away quite quickly in Game 4. Graeme shot: goal. Graeme shot: goal. Kyle shot: goal. Graeme shot, rebound: goal. 90 seconds into Game 4, it was 3-1 for Team Noel. The goalies looked pretty sad here; it took eight minutes to play a 5-4 game. Again, Kyle and Shem came back for the win. Lee edged Noel in saves 5-4! While their percentages were now pretty sad, they didn’t care, for they each had seven assists after four games. Knowing that Seamus had just set the goaltending session scoring record last week, it dawned on the crowd that the record could go down again this week. Especially sweet for the gang was the fact that Seamus wasn’t there to see it, and that the two guys going for the record weren’t even regular goaltenders, and that one of those guys was Lee.

Driven down to .740 and .680, respectively, Lee and Noel settled down from here on in and started making some pretty spectacular saves (both intentionally and not!). With the teams so close, this series was made a best-of-five. Game 5 was the third game of the series to go down to the wire; it would produce the same result as Team Lee won 5-4. Graeme was all ready to leave, but it was only 80 minutes into the session, and he was held captive as the rest of the gang wanted to keep playing (going for the goalie points record was an impetus, to be sure). To give an exhausted Graeme a break, Lee broke out the HD-cam, and an impromptu shootout was had. No scores were kept; these guys were performing for the camera, especially Noel, who was stellar. It also seemed to give him a confidence boost for the rest of the session, as he climbed from .690 to .736 in the final series. Hopefully, you’ll get to see some of Lee’s great footage in the next couple of days.

For the final series, only the goalies were switched as the current arrangement of skaters was working perfectly. Lee was up on Noel 10-9 in assists. Kyle and Shem were clicking early on, as they ended the game quickly 5-1. Kyle pointed out and Shem had four of his own. Their lack of defence caught up to them, though; Graeme and Nathan came right back with a quick 5-1 victory of their own, in which Lee tied Seamus’ goalie scoring record with 13 assists, and Nathan surpassed his career-high session scoring total (also set last week). This game was nearly called off at 3-0, as Kyle’s right arm took the brunt of a nasty pavement fall. I’d be hard-pressed to think of a quicker exit from the rink in Burton history, as Kyle ran right off and collapsed to the ground. Luckily, it was just a stinger, but he had little feeling in his hand for the rest of the day. Lee mistakenly celebrated a new record too early on the winning goal, however. Graeme was done after this game, walking off and beginning to take off his equipment, but the rest of the gang, wanting to finish the series and get Lee over the record, lured him back yet again for a new game. Naturally, it was the longest game of the day, including a panic-inducing moment at 2-2 when everyone realized the Canucks-Hawks game started in 40 minutes. Lee stopped 30 shots and Noel stopped 26. Lee got his points record, though, and topped it off with an assist on the winning goal to become the first goalie to ever score 15 points in a session. Noel was right behind at twelve. It was wacky, but it was fun today, especially in the second series when the play was ridiculously even. A few sprinkles of rain, but at this temperature, they’re quite welcome. And, hey, we snagged some video from it, both HD (Lee) and LD (moi). The LD game videos are up now; Lee should have the HD shootout footage up soon.

If there’s one thing Insane Clown Posse albums have taught us, it’s that miracles happen every day. On a day where we had a 30-pointer and two skaters recorded career-best scoring totals, the big story was Lee somehow pulling off .803 with a shutout and FIFTEEN POINTS FROM GOAL. Lee. Orr. Take that in for a second.
Anyway, despite barely average ten saves a game through seven games, the goalies came alive in Game 8 to finish at 106 (Lee) and 95 (Noel) saves. Noel fought back from a brutal opening half to finish at .736, including twelve assists. Careers high in goals all-around both in percentage, saves, and (obviously) points. The goalies perhaps weren’t quite as involved in the puck-handling plays as Seamus last week, but were certainly quite active in that regard. Scoring-wise, Kyle was dominant most of the day, scoring 27 points in the first six games. Although he came down a bit after the arm injury, he still put up a huge 23G-8A on 86 shots today (not to mention a missed shot that went through the chain-link!). Nathan and Graeme’s strong finish gave them both career-high sessions to top last week’s career highs. Nate was 15G-13A on 55 shots; Graeme was 15G-11A on 76 shots. Shem had a rough start but tore it up in the middle for 7G-7A on 44 shots.

Here are the game scores:
Kyle Lee Nathan def. Shem Graeme Noel 5-0
Kyle Shem Lee def. Nathan Graeme Noel 3-5 5-4 5-4 5-4
Graeme Nathan Lee def. Kyle Shem Noel 1-5 5-1 5-3

Here are the faceoff stats:
Kyle Grenier 23/36 (63.89%)
Graeme Orr 12/20 (60.00%)
Nathan Robson 14/32 (43.75%)
Shem Hanna 9/28 (32.14%)

Season Stats: Kyle increases his scoring lead over Lee, 493-447. Nathan goes over 200 points for the first time and passes Stefan to move back into fifth, 25 points behind Seamus. Graeme rockets into the top ten. Noel becomes the 16th player this season to score 100 points. Shem enters the top 20. Kyle needs 14 goals for 300. Nathan moves to seventh in goals and is one behind Seamus for sixth; Graeme is just one goal behind Nathan. Lee is 30 assists ahead of Kyle for first, 237-207. Noel passes Bernie for eleventh in assists, one behind Rob and Jordan Barlow. Lee ties Seamus for the lead in games played with 151. Kyle is just one game behind them at 150. Nathan ties Oliver for sixth and Graeme enters the top ten in three star points. Lee scores his first career goalie star points to pass Seamus for Seamus in total star points on the year. Kyle moves back up to 2.00 GPG. Graeme passes Mitch Detta for fifth in shots-per-game. Kyle’s 23 goals today rank third-most in a session so far this year, breaking into the Elischer-dominated top five. His 86 shots on goal rank sixth. Lee’s 15 assists rank seventh-highest in a session this season, which is stupid because he was freaking goaltending.

On the All-Time Front: Kyle becomes the seventh player to score 1,100 points in Burton Hockey and is just 29 points behind Bernie for sixth. Nathan passes Ben and becomes the 15th player with 400 points. Shem passes Sam for 23rd in scoring and is two behind Tony Hajdu for 22nd. Kyle is 24 goals behind Seamus for fifth. Graeme needs 21 goals for 400. Nathan passes Tony for 21st in goals. Lee becomes the second player to score 1,000 assists. Graeme is seven assists behind K.J. for tenth. Nathan is one assist behind Laird for twelfth. Shem passes Ryan for 18th in assists. Noel enters the top 30 in assists. Kyle becomes the sixth player to take 3,000 shots on goal; Graeme becomes the tenth to take 2,000. Lee becomes the third player to play 750 games. Shem ties Bron for 16th in games played. Lee posts his first career shutout. Kyle ties Stefan for fifth in three-star points. Kyle records his 45th 15-pointer, one behind Seamus for fourth and four behind Oliver for third. Graeme has his 15th 15-pointer; Nathan his fifth. Kyle extends his record 15-pointer streak to 31. Lee has five in a row. Graeme and Nathan both post their second career 20-pointers (both in a row, as well). Graeme also has two career 25-pointers, both consecutive. Kyle has 15 25-pointers, four behind Lee for the all-time lead, and six 30-pointers, five behind Pat for the all-time lead. Nathan records his second ten-goal session. He also has his first 15-goal session; Graeme has his second (both in a row). Kyle joins Pat as the only players with five 20-goal sessions (Pat has eight). Noel and Graeme have back-to-back ten-assisters. Lee breaks .800 for the first time (his previous best in his other aborted attempts in net was .742 back in 2006). Both Lee and Noel record their first 80- and 90-savers; Lee also breaks 100. Lee plays his 12th consecutive session, Graeme his twelfth. Seamus’ consecutive session streak ends at eleven. Lee’s 15 assists today rank first all-time for a goaltender in a session, deposing Seamus’ record set just last week. Noel’s 12 assists today rank third for a goalie in a session all-time. Kyle is three points away from becoming the second player to score 500 points in one season. Kyle’s 286 goals this year is a new career high and second all-time. Lee’s 237 assists rank as the second-highest season mark ever. Kyle’s 305 total star points this year is the second-highest mark ever.

SDF/GDF: With a VRH boxscore imminent, this ranking is not final. Right now, Kyle sees his lead over Pat slip (a lack of quality points today is the culprit). Justin has a bad session drop off and he rises over a 100 rating and into fourth. Graeme moves up three spots to ninth; Terryn drops five spots to 14th. Shockingly, the goalies today had little effect on the GDF, Taylor’s lead not in doubt as he leads his tenth career ranking. Lee and Noel do crack the top ten, however. Seamus did have a good session fall off, though, and Laird moves up to second as a result.

We're still waiting on today's VRH stats. Until next time, check out the Records and Honours pages in the Links section.