Saturday, November 29, 2014

Comets Lack Intensity but Still Cruise

It's not often that you say a blow out win was less than impressive, but that's exactly what tonight's Missouri Comets win over the Harrisburg Heat was. Playing their only game of the regular season under the old multi-point scoring system, the Missouri Comets brushed aside the winless Heat 24-10, but overall the performance just felt flat watching the game. This feeling was shared by at least one of the Comets players, Max Touloute, on Twitter who asked after the game "why does this feel like a loss." 

The Comets did come out with some fire though, scoring two goals within two and a half minutes of the game starting with Robert Palmer and Leo Gibson both being set up by Touloute to make it 4-0. The Heat struck back to make it 4-2 before the three minute mark. Palmer quickly restored the Comets two goal lead just after three minutes. From there the Comets seemed to settle into the game content to play around. Bryan Perez did add another goal on the power play to make it 8-2 near the midpoint of the half. It looked like if the Comets wanted they could blow the game wide open, but they never got out of first gear. With less than a minute left in the quarter Milan Ivanovic scored from inside the box to make it 10-2 at the end of one quarter.

The second quarter saw the Comets continue to but do so in a very laid back manner. Just 18 seconds in though Andrew Braithwaite made it 12-2 for the Comets. Palmer finished off his hattrik around the midpoint of the quarter making it 14-2 by the media timeout of the quarter. Late in the quarter the Comets allowed the Heat to cut the lead back to 10 at 14-4 where the teams went into halftime at.

The third quarter saw no scoring as the Comets continued to stay in first gear. Whether that was by design or struggle to get up against an inferior opponent is one that could be debated. Counting tonight's 24-10 (12-5) win, the Comets have won their four games against teams in the old PASL by an average of 8 goals a game. Their other win was a 9-7 win over the Milwaukee Wave.

The fourth quarter saw the teams come out scoring after the scoreless third. The Comets rattled off three goals in the first three minutes with Perez, Vahid Assadpour, and Stefan Stokic all finding the net, two were assisted by Gibson giving him four on the night to go with his one goal. After the Heat cut the lead to 20-6, The Comets scored twice more in less than a minute to go to 24-6 with Braithwaite and Assadpour both finding net for the second time. In the last five minutes the Heat made the score closer, scoring twice to end the game at 24-10.

Still the game never felt that close, the Comets just never seemed to really turn their game on. They'll have to turn it on come Friday when they return home to take on the Chicago Mustangs who surprised the Wave tonight 5-4 to give the former PASL teams their first win over one of the MISL's "big 3" (Baltimore, Milwaukee, Missouri).


Anonymous said...

Why the dumb multipoint scoring system for this game only?

Mike said...

Because 4 teams, Harrisburg, Baltimore, Syracuse, and Rochester all chose to continue to use MPS. So when they're the home team they play with MPS, when they travel to teams that play SPS they play by SPS rules. It's really dumb by the league.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the info. Yeah that is ridiculous.