Riley Barber notched his 13th goal of the season while shorthanded to give Miami a 2-1 lead heading to the third period. Miami completely owned about 18 minutes of the period and at times had possession in the CC end for minutes at a time. I’d like to see more finish out of this team, but the effort has been outstanding tonight.

The line of Schmit, Lemirande, Coleman/Murphy was huge (no pun intended) in the period. Rico rewarded the Crash Cousins with more ice time throughout the period. Wearing a team down at altitude with that size is an excellent coaching maneuver.

Other thoughts…

• We said earlier that Riley Barber looked sharp tonight. And, as usual, we were right. Barber’s sick wrister from between the circles after a toe drag/dangle was criminal. Keep it up big fella.

• Crash Cousins are big. We haven’t seen a ton of the two of them together this year, but tonight, they are dominating the Tigers in the offensive zone digging out pucks and showing more offensive prowess than I can recall seeing from them this year. Well done.

• Jay Williams has found his game. After not being tested for what seemed to be the entire second period, Williams came up big as CC mounted several good chances late in the period. He looks much sharper.

2-1 Miami after two. Let’s finish this and get ready for tomorrow night!