Yesterday night, my lovely Bélougas played home against the Nantes Corsaires, one of our biggest rival, who
always beat us those last seasons.
The game itself was really good. I've never seen the Bélougas play so well, especially in their defensive zone. In only 15 days, our defense has strongly improve! We were well positionned and well organized, and play as physical as in every game (maybe a bit more, as it was against a rival

). Our goalie, Thomas Picavet, stopped to play the puck behind his net, which resulted in hazardous passes very dangerous for our team in the previous games.
Nantes put a high forecheck all the game, and we had some difficulties to clear the zone, especially in the second half or the first period, when we nearly never get out of our zone

But then our solid defense and a great job from our goalie only allows Nantes to tie the game at 1-1.
Then the public starts to push the Bélougas, and we made a lot of noise, like never before, while both teams were giving their best hockey on the ice, for a superb game! It was definetly war on the ice, and the refs had a lot of work to calm everyone's nerves, with two 10 minutes misconduct penalties for both teams and a lot of minor penalties for elbowing, high-sticking, or checking from behind.
That leads to a lot of power-play opportunities for both teams. The Bélougas were still strong on the power-play, scoring 2 of their 4 goals on the man advantage, including, once again, a superb slapshot from #44 Terry Prunier. It seems that he scores one on every home game, which is pretty good for a D-man

.
On the other hand, our PK was strong enough, with only 1 goal conceded on 8 or 9 shortanded situations. Thanks to Picavet for that, as he made once again a really good game in the net.
Finally, we won this exciting game by a score of 4-3. So now the Bélougas are tied for 2nd with 10 points, while Lyon is the new leader, with 11 points, after beating Nice 6-4 at home. It's 4 teams in only 1 point! And the 5th are just 3 points behind, so the battle will be hard to get a spot in the top 4 of the division (which brings teams in the upper pool with top 4 teams of the other division for the 2nd stage of the regular season).
Next saturday, the Bélougas will play home against Mont-Blanc, one of the weakest team of our division. We won 7-2 at Mont-Blanc, so there are great hope for a strong win next week!
I'll keep you tuned!
