On the afternoon of Saturday December 5th at the Rotary Rink in Stratford, Chris Stewart’s charges had difficulty establishing any flow in a game that was interrupted by 13 penalties, seven of which were assigned to Lakers.
Brantford
The Minor Midgets are far from being in a slump but they were in a bit of a lull last week against Brantford and Elgin-Middlesex. Brantford struck first, 32 seconds into the game. Early in the second, after taking a
Scott Coghlin pass,
Shawn Moore found himself at a bad angle to the left of the net but his rising slap shot found the only space available above the goalie’s right shoulder.....1-1. Eight minutes into the second period, the Gretzkys made it 2-1 with a power play goal. Eight minutes into the third period, the Lakers finally capitalized on a power play of their own when
Jesse DeGroote’s heavy wrister was slightly redirected by
Brady Wiffen.
Drew Reinhardt faced 19 shots in this 2-2 stalemate and turned 17 of them aside.
Elgin-Middlesex
On Sunday, the team travelled to Strathroy to face the Chiefs. On an early penalty kill, Lakers special units put up a good show of resistance, including a sliding shot block by
Brandon Priestap, but succumbed after 90 seconds to the Chiefs’ potent power play. On the first shift of the second period, goalie
Drew Reinhardt stared down a hard slap shot. The rebound switched the direction of play and led to a long pass from
Brady Wiffen to a streaking
Ryan Watson.
Watson slowed the puck at the blue line and chased after it to gain some ground on the defense. Running out of real estate, the speedster cut to his right in front of the goalie and buried the backhander. At 6:59 of the second the Chiefs went ahead 2-1 on another power play and ahead 3-1 with an even strength goal.
Ty Bilcke nearly made it 3-2 in the third. Taking control of the puck on a penalty kill, the rugged winger fought off two checkers from the blue line in but was denied after getting off a good shot from close range. A third power play goal for the Chiefs made the final score 4-1 in their favour. The Lakers were outshot 25-11.
Hamilton
Although the team was expected to beat the Reps quite handily, this midweek game did provide the Lakers with a measure of redemption after the previous two. On a first period dump and chase
David Sproat took the shortest route to the puck, outracing a defender with time to spare before sending a soft centering pass to line mate
Jerry Ennett who buried it top left. Soon after that,
Cian Patterson-March’s shutout bid was ruined but a quick accurate shot was needed to beat him. This would be the only time the Reps got one by the agile goaltender. Six seconds of a first period power play was all the time it took for
Ray Huether to win the draw back to the point,
Jake Ringuette to slide it across the blue line, and
Scott Coghlin to blast a hard, rising slap shot which cleanly beat the goalie.
In the second period the Huron-Perth squad really took control making even strength situations look like power plays. Moving to his right,
Scott Coghlin lugged the puck over the Hamilton blue line and surprised all defenders by chipping a pass against the flow to
Ryan Watson.
Watson snapped a high one just underneath the crossbar to make it 3-1.
Watson nearly salted the game away in the third period, somehow controlling a hard pass with his skate before racing in for the trademark deke to the backhand. The goalie did a good job going with
Watson, however, and got a pad in front of the puck. It was left to
Scott Coghlin to put the game out of reach on the power play. Again,
Jake Ringuette slid the puck along the blue line to his partner.
Coghlin walked in and cleanly beat the goalie again, this time with a hard slap shot along the ice. Three points on the night for
Coghlin! Final score.....4-1.
Article by: Paul Sproat