Photo Credit: Reading Royals
The talk going into this game was the Royals got to play a full 60 and get that 10-20 percent that costs the Royals the game taken care of. Well, after a slow start in the first few minutes where Pat Nagle made some key saves on Admirals players the Royals really turned it on. Their only blunder in the first was the shorthanded breakaway goal that Alex Berardinelli scored. To close out the period due to the help of Chase Lang taking penalties for Norfolk, the Royals were able to capture momentum and flip the ice in their favor. First getting a deflected goal by Mike Crocock on a beautiful point shot from Dominic Cormier at 13:57 then on the second powerplay getting a snipe from Joshua Winquist at 15:52. The Royals finished the first leading in shots 15-9 according to the in-stadium scoreboard. They played exactly the first fans wanted to see after a tough loss Wednesday.
In the second period, the Royals continued to control the ice and if it was not for Dylan Wells they could have had a much bigger lead. Especially while on their third power play he came up huge for the opposing Admirals. In this game, Wells was the Reason Norfolk was so close. It could have easily been a 10-2. Royals did get two however as Frank Dichiara on a nice Cecere pass made in 3-1. Then Cam Strong on a Mike Crocock assist made it 4-1 as he scored while crashing the net in front. The Royals just kept pushing, and did not let the Admirals to get anything going.
Now onto the third period where Nagle was electric as Norfolk had more of the chances in the 3rd but Nagle shut the door minus the unstoppable Robertson blast. Then on the other end Brayden Low was able to pot one battling in front. I really like Low’s game he does all the small things right and is a good net-front player. Even with some extra chances in the 3rd for the Admirals the Royals still took it to them for the majority of this game and the deserving team won. This was overall the most complete game the Royals have played all season bouncing back from Wednesday’s tough loss. They controlled the play 95% of the time and when they didn’t star netminder Pat Nagle came up huge again.
Now all there is left to conclude is the 3 stars of the night which for good reason is a tough list to pick from. Let’s first start with Nagle as the 3rd star, who was on fire again stoning the Admirals on the top-scoring chances they did get. The two he allowed were clearly nothing he could do goals on a shorthanded 2-1 then a rocket of a shot. As for the second star that goes to non-other than Mike Crocock who got his first goal of the season tonight and had a Assists on Cam Stong’s net crashing goal. Then now the first star Joshua Winquist who proves each night he is a top-line player in this league as Kirk MacDonald described him as in the post-game presser to me. Top-notch play from these three stars and overall the Royals team as they capture their best win of the season thus far in the 5-2 victory over the Admirals. Now they look to carry their momentum into tomorrow as they face the same Admirals yet again. Lets Go Royals!!
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