Nikulin Blog: October 16th
October 15, 2007
ThirtyFive has the latest translation up on HFBoards.
October 16: Feels like I’ve played the whole season here.
Finally I scored my first goal in North America. It was during the game where my Binghamton played Syracuse, a game we lost, unfortunately. It was a hard-working goal. I shot from the hash marks, the puck hit the pipe and bounced back to me. I shot again, and got it in the net.
Naturally, they retrieved the puck and gave it to me as a gift. And overall that game turned out to be very interesting. I have to say we should have been winning. We had a lot more opportunities than the opponent, but didn’t capitalize of them. For example, I could’ve scored about five times. And then we failed to kill a penalty, and broke down, I guess.
Also interesting was the game against Hershey. The Bears are a very technically sound team. There are fine players in the lineup that can also play physically with the best of them. But here things were different. We scored a very timely goal and finished the game with a win.
I’m playing a lot, can’t complain. I’m out on the power play all the time, they trust me. Though I’m out rarely for the penalty kill. Was out just once and we were scored on right away. So if I’m better when we’re up a man, then that’s where I’ll play.
I’m getting used to the fact that each game is a new challenge. And you must give a hundred percent in any game. But talking strictly hockey, I’m feeling very confident, as if I’ve been played here all season long.
For two games Ray Emery tended our goal. He played quite well. But I didn’t see anything outstanding, although, of course, he’s an excellent goalie. We do not have poor goalies here, anyway. Ray brought our game up, no doubt. They say he fights, too.
Speaking of fighting, there were a couple of scraps in the game against Hershey. Our tough guy Jeremy Yablonski showed himself off in the best of lights. It all began when he selected as his opponent a guy four times as big as him. Since Jeremy doesn’t look that strong on first sight, his opponent looked huge. But Yablonski won, I thought. Landed a few exact punches. It was a rough fight, all in all. Even though the game turned out to be rather physical with lots of penalty minutes, I didn’t take part in any of these scrums.
I want to note that the last two games I spent with different partners. In the game against Syracuse I was with Tyler Donati and Cody Bass, and against Washington’s farm team I was with Josh Hennessy and Niko Dimitrakos. I don’t mind the constant switching, it doesn’t hinder me. You see, almost all the guys here are of the same level. And we quickly find common ground. So, in both games I picked up points.
Though whatever Cory Clouston, the head coach, is telling me I don’t understand yet. I know he’s trying to give me some tips. No, there’s not a problem during the post-game discussion. We watch video and I have an idea of what’s going on, but during actual conversation it’s still hard to understand words.
One thing I understood is that he was really upset after the loss to Syracuse. Not because of the loss itself so much, as with the unsuccessful performance on the power play. We didn’t shoot enough, though we worked on this during practice.
At least I’m happy that my favorite sticks have arrived, the ones I’m so used to. And I scored my first goal with one of them. I hope it won’t be the last in the AHL, and, in the future, in the NHL.
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