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EAST ALTON – One of the biggest reasons for the success of the Edwardsville hockey team in recent years has been the play of goaltender Matthew Griffin.
Griffin's backstopping skills were a key reason why the Tigers got to the semifinals of the Mid-States Club Hockey Association's St. Louis Blues Challenge Cup Playoffs last year before the Tigers were eliminated by eventual champion CBC.
Griffin was between the pipes for EHS in Thursday night's 6-3 MSCHA loss to DeSmet at East Alton Ice Arena.
“They got on us early,” Griffin said. “We lost it from the beginning and we're a better team than that and we'll figure it out; it's a weird sport, you'll have games like that sometimes.”
This year's Tiger team is a bit different from last year's team that got to the semifinals, with several new faces dotting the lineup. “I think we'll be all right,” Griffin said. “We'll figure it out and start clicking soon enough and get it going.”
When the Tigers are hitting on all cylinders, they can be a difficult team to stop. “We've got a lot of depth and we have some people who can score from all over the ice,” Griffin said. “We've got good defensemen.”
The Tigers will get a chance this evening to bounce back from Thursday's loss with a game at Queeny Park in St. Louis County against Chaminade. “We're early in the season though,” Griffin said. “(Last season's team was a team) that played hard all the time; we really came together as a family last year – we'll figure it out this year too.”
