Record for the Week: 2-0-0

Final Regular Season Record: 23-18-1 (6th in North Division)

Player of the Week: F Matt Senra, 2 GP, 4 Points (2G, 2A)

Rookie of the Week: F Matt Senra, 2 GP, 4 Points (2G, 2A)

Goalie of the Week: G TJ Sherwood, 2 GP, 2 W, 3.50 GAA, .885 SVS%

Games this past week:

Ville-Marie Pirates @ New Tecumseth Civics

2.8.18- Civics 5, Pirates 3

The New Tecumseth Civics were the benefactor of two goals each from Riley Nadeau and Reingold Shtemke to help propel them past the Ville Marie Pirates 5-3 Thursday Evening in a GMHL match-up at the New Tecumseth Rec Centre.

Shtemke scored the only goal of the first period when he took a pass from Maksim Kalashnikov and was able to put it past Pirates goaltender Jean-Mathieu Ouellet before the end of the frame at 16:41.

The second period scoresheet showed all Pirates, as Ville-Marie scored all three of its goals in the middle stanza and all three of them on the power play taking advantage of 5 Civics penalties in the period. Hugo Blum, Christophe Beaule-Guimond, and Felix-Antoine Levesque were the ones responsible for the Pirates goals.

In the third the Civics took over scoring four unanswered to skate away with a 5-3 win, Shtemke scored his second of the game just over a minute into the third followed by a shorthanded marker by Eino Laiskeliainen to tie the game up at 3. Civics captain Riley Nadeau added the last two goals for the Civics putting this thing away with the game winner and the icing goal

Kalashnikov had two assists for the winning side.

TJ Sherwood turned away 37 of the 40 shots fired his way to record the win for the Civics while Ouellet faced 25 attempts in defeat for Ville Marie.

New Tecumseth Civics @ Seguin Huskies

2.10.18- Civics 8, Huskies 7

The New Tecumseth Civics built up a comfortable lead in the second period then had to withstand a late comeback bid by the Seguin Huskies before eventually prevailing 8-7 Friday in a high-scoring GMHL affair at the Humphrey Community Centre.

New Tecumseth started strong in this one grabbing a 3-2 lead after one period of play as Matthew Senra, Malik Dhaliwal, and Vadim Shatunov connected for the visitors while Kyle Torgerson and Devin Sroka picked up the Huskies markers in the frame.

After Torgerson tied it up with his second of the night 40 seconds into the middle stanza,Nadeau, Shtemke, Marshel Tupper, Vasili Aniskin shorthanded and Matthew Senra on the powerplay made it 8-4 after Tyler Sheridan added another for the Huskies in the frame.

Countering, Seguin saw Aleksi Salminen and Sroka strike 12 seconds apart in the third before Vili Liimatainen scored the final goal of the game to bring the Huskies comeback bid to an end and securing the victory for New Tecumseth.

Matthew Senra and Roman Kulakov had 4 and 3 points respectively for NTC while Kyle Torgerson had four helpers alongside his 2 goals for a game high 6 points.

TJ Sherwood was the winning goaltender seeing 21 shots fired his way and giving up 4 prior to Stepan Belov taking over the net for the third where he proceeded to make 10 saves on 13 shots in relief.

Yuto Yamasuda started for the Huskies but gave way to Tanner Fausnaugh after the seventh New Tecumseth tally.

Yamasuda faced 32 attempts in thirty minutes of work suffering the loss while Fausnaugh looked impressive in relief allowing one on 14 attempts.

Playoff Series Preview:

New Tecumseth Civics (6) vs. Ville-Marie Pirates (3)

Game 1: 2.23.18- 8:00 Ville Marie Arena

Game 2: 2.24.18- 7:30 Ville Marie Arena

Game 3 (If Necessary): 2.26.18- 2:30 New Tecumseth Rec Centre

The Civics start off the Russell Cup playoffs with a division quarterfinal matchup with the third seeded Ville-Marie Pirates. The Pirates finished 29-12-1 good enough for 59 points while the Civics finished sixth in the division with 47 points. The Civics are coming off to a hot end to their season where they won the last 2 games of the regular season and rode a 4 game home winning streak to end off the season. The Pirates however come into this game .500 in their last six games following an impressive eight game winning streak. One of the losses in that .500 stretch was the loss to the Civics reviewed in this article on Thursday. The Civics will be relying on the pieces to come together and for captain Riley Nadeau to be able to use his creativity to exploit a Ville-Marie defense that was a weaker unit then their goaltending and Offense. If the Civics can force a decisive game 3 at some point in the series then they will be getting back from suspension skilled forward Guillaum Taupier who has proved he has what it takes to be a difference maker. The series won’t even make it to three games if the defense and goalie TJ Sherwood have anything to say about it. The two time reigning goalie of the year and MVP finalist will be hoping to show the entire league that come playoff time the pressure still has no effect on him as he has gathered a reputation as one of the most calm and collected goaltenders in GMHL history. The defense will looked upon to come up strong as a unit and Rookie of the year finalist Tyson Lambert will be looking to make a difference on the back end alongside strong players in Phil Kemmer, Mikhail Kornilov, and Eino Laiskelainen. Head Coach Dennis Martindale had this to say about the upcoming series with the Pirates, “It was nice to get a win against them on Thursday to prove to them and ourselves we can beat them but the playoffs are a whole other animal and they will have a sold out barn forcing us into a situation where we know we have to show up and play. We know they are offensively skilled, if we give them time and space they are gonna make us pay, but if we play our game for 60 minutes I’m not scared of any team in our division.” Playing a full 60 minutes has been the focal point of the Civics season and all of us here in Civic nation know that we have the skill to compete with anyone in the division and we wish all the best of luck to the Civics this weekend and we will see you at home on Monday afternoon if need be.

Author: Jordan Richardson, Media Contributor