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Lak shuts out attack

Lak Attack has never had a problem getting goals. Now he's taking them away.

The newfound netminder won his third consecutive game Sunday, 20-7. It's also the third straight time he's held opposing snipers to less than 10 goals, the Sunday Morning Road Hockey equivalent of a shutout.

"It's unprecedented," says Paul One, who's got a three game streak of his own, all of them losses. "We can remember the days of 22-20 overtime games, and now the goals just aren't coming. When we're out there, we're just sorta looking at each other, we're wondering who's the guys who are gonna start lighting it up."

"To let in less than ten goals in this game is an amazing feat," says Beetle Boy, who returned to action Sunday after missing more than a month with a sprained ankle.

"I can't figure out how he can do it," says Rudy, who did manage three goals in a losing effort. "It doesn't seem like there's any way to beat him."

For the first period, there wasn't. With Lak Attack stonewalling opposing scorers, his teammates were able to charge deep into the offensive zone with confidence. Led by Kid's three straight goals, they stormed to a 5-0 lead. They never looked back.

"It's always a boost to know you can afford to roam into their end a little bit," says New Guy. "If your goaltender is playing well, then you know you have to play well."

"I think it was pretty important," says Lak Attack of his side's stellar start. "The teams were pretty competitive and it gave us the boost we needed to continue. It kinda broke their spirit from the very beginning."

"Once you're down 5-0, it's tough to get back into any type of flow to get things going your way," says Paul One, who's only scored once on his netminding nemesis in the last two weeks. "It's always a combination of things; we didn't get a single bounce going our way, and that's what happens when you're not playing well."

"They got those goals, their confidence builds and our's just decreases; you almost lose the game before it's even a few goals old," says Beetle Boy, who didn't help his side's cause when he ripped a cross-crease pass through the legs of his own goalie, Gump. "Once you're down like that, it puts your team in a funk and it's hard to crawl out of that funk."

Especially when the goalie is holding a hot hand. Like the lightning stab Lak Attack made with his trapper as he flopped out of position to rob the Colonel of a sure goal to the open side of the net.

"He's got great reactions," says Rudy. "He's tough to solve. He covers up so much of the net that we can't get around him."

"I don't think you're gonna beat him on a one-on-one shot," says Paul One. "He doesn't seem to give up the garbage goals."

"He's stopping everything right now," says Beetle Boy. "He's positioned perfectly, he's not leaving us anything. If we knew what he was doing right, we might be able to find some weaknesses in him."

But Lak Attack isn't about to give up his secrets. With regular rearguards Lobsterboy and Ottoman still out of the lineup as they recover from laser eye surgeries, he's making the most of his new role, as much as his roll.

"The focus is just to say in net and play the best I can," says the super substitute. "Each time I come in I've been trying to just work on my game and try to focus on the little things I need to improve on. It can go the other way pretty quickly."

Posted by jaysuburb at January 25, 2004 05:06 PM