The Major Atom Lakers struggled all weekend and ended up losing all 3 home games. On Friday Jan. 13, the flu reduced bench was overwhelmed in Stratford 9-1 by the London Knights, the top ranked team in Ontario. In Milverton, on Saturday Jan.14, the Lakers fell 5-4 to divisional leader Waterloo Wolves; almost coming back from a 5 goal deficit with 9 minutes to go. On Sunday, Jan. 15th in Goderich, the Lakers opened the scoring in the 1st and then fell flat and lost 6-1 to the Brantford 99ers. The games removed any chance of the Lakers finishing 3rd and they will finish 4th in the regular season.
The Lakers were short staffed against the Knights but they were also flat and quickly fell behind 7-0 before scoring their lonely goal late in the 2nd from Reid Campbell, assisted by Joshua Zelek.
Against the Wolves, the Lakers fell behind 5-0 early in the 3rd before coming to life with 9 minutes remaining in the game, scoring 3 powerplay goals as well as an additional goal 5-on-5 before almost tying it in the last 2 minutes. The 1st Laker goal was scored by Campbell assisted by Zelek and Kyle Stanbury. The 2nd Laker goal was scored by Carter McLlwain from the point, assisted by Stanbury and Zelek. Wide open Campbell tipped Zelek’s pass for the 3rd goal. The 4th goal was scored by Zelek, putting in McLlwain’s rebound, with Sam Dupuis also getting an assist. The 3rd period was the best the Lakers played all weekend. Too bad, it could not be captured in a box and released at other times during the weekend.
Against the 99ers, the Lakers struck first, when Dupuis deflected Ethan Roche’s pass to open the scoring. Nothing else went right for the Lakers the rest of the game.
The Lakers will open their playoffs against the 99ers in a couple of weeks and they will definitely have to play better. If they are able to overcome the 99ers, their next opponent will be the Wolves. The showing against the Wolves was encouraging. Perhaps there is a silver lining in that this weekend happened now and not later in the playoffs. Hopefully, there is a lot that the team can learn from this weekend so that they can bring their ‘A’ game the rest of the way. Go Lakers!