The Thunderwolves faithful got their first look at the revamped OUA this past weekend, when the Windsor Lancers were in town to open our OUA regular season schedule. Just like Waterloo in our first weekend, the Lancers had shown that they have made some considerable improvements in their lineup since the last time we met.
Their non-conference schedule was played out entirely against NCAA Division I teams, including the defending national champion Denver Pioneers. We expected that they would be used to a quicker pace of play, and also expected them to pay very close attention to the defensive side of the puck. They delivered on both counts.
To borrow a phrase from Pete Belliveau, we saw the Lancers play a committed brand of "anti-hockey" this weekend. We use that term to describe the play of a team playing not to get blown out, as opposed to a team trying to win a hockey game. It appeared to be working for them all too well for the first 50 minutes of Friday night's game. We were forcing passes, generating a few chances but scoring on none of them, and found ourselves down 1-0 heading into the third period, and 2-0 after giving up another goal early in the third.
That served as a wake-up call for our troops. I thought we utterly dominated the last half of the third. Murray Magill got the ball rolling for us in continuing his hot hand around the net, with a bit of a weird goal that got us back in the game about halfway through the third. Rookie Sean Stefanski scored his biggest goal in a Thunderwolves uniform when he tied it shortly afterwards. Jeff Richards got the game winner with just over three minutes left.
The last minute of play saw the line of MikeWehrstedt, Mark Robinson and Jason Lange turn in one of the best shifts you'll see at any level. With the Lancers desperately trying to get their goalie out in favor of an extra skater, they found themselves hemmed in for a full 40 seconds. We managed not only to prevent them from getting the goalie out, but had several excellent chances to salt the game away with the insurance goal. It is a shame they didn't convert, but from a coach's perspective, it was a real thing of beauty to watch.
Saturday's game felt like we were in the movie "Groundhog Day". It began in an identical fashion to Friday's, complete with them trapping, us devising new ways to break out, and the Lancer's taking a 1-0 lead after winning a battle off a face-off early in the second period. Any similarities ended less than a minute later, when Captain Scherban jammed in his own rebound to even the game. Eight minutes later, Dene Poulin converted from the slot to take the lead. It was nice to see Poulie notch - he had a couple of pretty good chances on Friday night but wasn't able to put one in. Scherban quickly followed that up with his second of the game less than a minute later, to end the second with a 3-1 lead.
The scoring was rounded out late in the game, with an empty net goal by second year defenseman Mike Self. Selfer has made many contributions to the team since his arrival, but scoring has not been one of them! It was his first CIS goal, and the puck was retrieved for him as proof. Congratulations Selfer!!
Overall, the coaching staff has been happy with our team defence. So far in OUA action, we have a 1.5 goals against average, once again allowing only three goals against in the games this weekend. We will dedicate much time in practice this week to gaining some good offensive habits, beginning with providing more support to our puck carriers. Good, intense one-on-one battling will also occupy quite a bit of time.
Up this weekend, we have the Laurier Golden Hawks. They are off to a great start this season, at the time of this writing are 4 and 0 in the OUA. They were also victorious the last time we met down in Kitchener in February of this year, so we know we will have our work cut out for<