Eagles off to 6 and 0 start.

LOVELAND, Colo – The retooled and reorganized Colorado Eagles have posted a 6 win 0 loss start to their 2008-2009 CHL hockey season. This perfect start is the most promising start of any of the Eagles previous 5 seasons.
As good as these numbers are it has not been quite as simple as it sounds. Three of the six wins thus far were shoot out wins and only two of the games were decisive Colorado victories.
Opening night on October 17 at the Budweiser Event Center featured the first of the shootout wins against the brand new expansion, Rapid City Rush. Built on a similar model as The Colorado Eagles, the Rush have a good veteran core and a proven winner in goal with Miguel Beaudry.
Matched up against Beaudry was one of Colorado’s new goalie tandem members, former Colorado Avalanche prospect, Andrew Penner. Although 6 goals were scored against him over the course of the 65 minutes plus shootout time, Penner managed to stop one more goal than his counterpart at the other end of the ice and that gave the 6’3″ 212 lb. net minder his first ever CHL win.

The next night, Oct. 18,  saw the same two teams play game 2 of their respective seasons with eerily similar results. The Colorado Eagles posted another shootout victory over the Rapid City Rush this one backstopped by the other member of the goalie tandem, Morgan Cey, a former NCAA goalie with Notre Dame as well as a prospect signee with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Cey, another big goalie at 6’3″ and 180 lbs. also managed to stop one more goal than Beaudry to win his debut with the Eagles.
On Tuesday, Oct.22, the Eagles took the show on the road against last year’s regular season nemesis, The Rocky Mountain Rage, in nearby Broomfield, Colorado. Penner was once again in goal and despite allowing the first goal of the game, the Eagles turned on the jets and ran away with this game scoring 4 goals in the remainder of the first period and a 5 goal early in the second to put this game away. Third period fisticuffs involved the two starting goalies as Penner skated down ice to engage the Rage goalie Mart Magers, after Magers slashed Colorado Eagles veteran Greg Pankewicz in the stomach. Two more fights involving Eagles defenseman, Adam Knight and Rob Chappell of the Rage as well as a heavy weight bout between Colorado’s Jason Beatty and Rocky Mountain tough guy, Colt King, rounded out the lopsided 5 to 1 victory for the Eagles.
Back at the Budweiser Events Center on Oct. 24, the  Eagles worked hard to get an early lead in a revenge match against an Arizona Sun dogs team that swept them in 4 straight games knocking them out of contention for the President’s Cup last season. With former Colorado Avalanche player Claude Lemieux, who has been working out with the Sundogs in preparation for an attempted  return to the NHL, watching from behind the north-end glass the Colorado Eagles hung on to defeat this year’s version of the 2007-2008 President’s Cup winning team by a score of 7 to 5.
After beating the Sundogs the Colorado team immediately boarded a bus and headed to Amarillo, Texas to play the Gorillas the next day. A feisty Gorilla team scored the first goal of the match and added a second goal sandwiched around two Colorado goals in the first period but that was all the scoring for the hometeam as the Eagles potted four more to take a 6 to 2 victory.
Less than 16 hours after beating the Gorillas, the Colorado Eagles were back on ice in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma to take on the Blazers in their three games, in three days, in three different cities marathon. Obviously tired and still playing two men short on defense after the losses of Tom Reimann and Jason Beatty, the Eagles played a safe defensive game that resulted in a 1 to 1 tie through 60 minutes of regulation and another 5 minutes of Overtime. Another shootout was needed to decide the game and the wiley veteran, Greg Pankewicz scored the game winner to give Morgan Cey his second shootout victory in a 2 to 1 match.
The road trip continues in Bossier-Shreveport, Louisiana where the Eagles take on, the also undefeated, Bossier-Shreveport Mudbugs.
Contact the author at:  TSanford@prohockeynews.com