Day 23 review: MOU@ROV

The decree has come down from above. It's business casual for the rest of the season in Roverland; the boss is sick of ties.

The Rovers hosted the top-ranked Mounties in the back end of their home-and-home and once again battled to a draw, this a 1-1 affair that was dominated in almost all aspects by the home squad. The Mounties played a trapping style all night, always dropping back and rarely rushing the puck. It was a style which saw the Rovers have a significant edge in shots, possession, hits, and corner battles... almost all areas besides the final score. Miikka Kiprusoff turned aside 30 of 31 shots, with only Alex Korolyuk's tying power-play goal in the third beating him. Martin Gerber faced only 14 shots, with Joe Nieuwendyk's second period marker his only blemish. "I like how we played tonight", Stringer said of the effort. "When a goalie steals a game from you, you can't really complain. We did everything right except score the go-ahead goal".

Now unbeaten in nine games (though a curious mix of four wins and five ties), the Rovers travel to Calgary to face the Vampyres. Despite sitting at an uncharaceristically low .500 mark for the year, the Vampyres are always tough and overlooking them would be a dangerous thing to do.