Hejduk stars again as Halifax opens the finals with a win -- Great White Rumour Mill

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Subject: Hejduk stars again as Halifax opens the finals with a win

Author:
Rock Lobster

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Date Posted: 17:02:15 06/19/03 Thu

(HALIFAX)-Milan Hejduk's behind the back pass in the second period set up Captain Rob Blake for what proved to be the game winner and rookie Radim Vrbata scored his first playoff goal as the Halifax Harpoons downed the Saskatoon Silos 5-2 in Game #1 of the GWHL Championship Finals. Blake's goal, scored at 17:17, started as a 2 on 1 with Eric Lindros with Don Sweeney back. Lindros skated in on the right and fed Hejduk on the left but Sweeney played it perfectly taking away the return pass to Lindros and the shot. However Blake had been skating hard on the play turning himself into a second option for the winger and the Czech made a beautiful behind the back pass to hit him in full stride. The blueliner then buried the puck in the top corner for the 3-0 Harpoons lead.

The homeside dominated play in the first period outshooting Saskatoon 12-3 before a capacity crowd of 19,300 at the Aquadome. At 5:56 Shawn Bates scored his 4th goal of the playoffs following up Eric Lindros' end to end rush. Lindros being steered to the side by Janne Niinimaa, took a shot on goal which netminder Joclyn Thibault stopped but lost track of and Bates swooped in and potted the rebound to open the scoring. Then 15 seconds before the period lapsed Radim Vrbata re-directed a slap pass from Blake to give the Harpoons a 2 goal lead.

Halifax kept up the pressure in the second and it was only in the third that the vistors were able to mount any kind of attack. First it was Niinimaa who took the cross point feed from Sweeney and fired a screen shot past Sean Burke to get the Silos on the board at 2:20. This was countered some 11 minutes later when Joe Thornton bulled his way through a goalmouth scrum and lifted Jeff O'Neill's rebound over the prone Thibault. Richard Kron would tally for Saskatoon on a similar play at 16:52, but a late penalty to Claude Lapointe for elbowing at 17:15 put the Silos down a man late and Halifax took full advantage with Marian Hossa doing the honours at 19:02 to close out the scoring.

Hejduk for the second game in a row was the games first star. "I'm just trying to concentrate on burying my chances when I get them and getting it to the open man when I don't," said the Czech winger.

With 3 points in 5 games, Radim Vrbata is most likely to be the player bumped from the lineup when Peter Bondra returns after serving his 5 game suspension. "Radim did his job when he was up here," stated Coach Andy Murray. "He helped keep (Jeff)O'Neill and Milan fresh. He's definitely got a future in this league."

"We've got to go home, get some rest and prepare for tomorrow night," advised Captain Rob Blake. "This team just got done beating Victoria and Calgary in the playoffs and the last time we faced either of those teams at this time a year we lost. This team isn't going to roll over for us."

Rock Lobster
HALIFAX HERALD

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