Recap

Shukr steals win over Emaan Nov 21, 2017
by Farooq Sani  

The 2nd game of Week 9 featured the closest matchup with 2nd seed Emaan taking on a Shukr team with much to prove. They didn’t waste much time proving it as Umar Muhammad deposited a rebound and mailed a thank you letter to rising star Humza Ali who set up the play with a strong push to the net off a neutral zone turnover. This was in the first minute of the game. After the initial giveaway, Orange tightened things up and pushed back, helped by 3 powerplay opportunities. But sometimes a gift is a curse as Emaan lined up all 5 players on the offensive blue line but left the ball behind, poked away by Humza once more for a nice breakaway goal. The half wasn’t over and it was 2-0 Red. To start the 2nd half, yours truly landed in the Shukr net leading to a goalie interference call and as it was Orange’s first infraction of the game, the extra penalty was to write this review. I assume this is what spurred Emaan to spend the rest of the 2nd half dominating possession and cycling in the Shukr zone until savvy veteran Saajid Bhayat finally scored off a quick turnaround shot near the faceoff dot. Time was running out but with nearly a minute to go Luqman hit the post off a beauty cross crease pass from Saleem, and was then brought down by a hit from his opposing GM Umar. A few penalties followed but this also seemed to distract Orange, who made the strange (non) call of not pulling the goalie on a 5 on 3 powerplay in the last minute of the game. Khalid Mufti stood tall as potential player of the game with 22 saves. With 26 PIM in this chippy game, it felt like playoff intensity with only 1 more to go and lots of seeding implications left.


 
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