Photo By: Spencer Smye / OJHL Images

Burlington Cougars

The Blades made the short trip to the Central Arena in Burlington this past Friday for the 3rd instalment of the Battle of Burloak this season. Burlington had taken the first two games between these two squads by a score of 5-1 and 4-3 but the Blades were looking more dangerous than they had in the past. On top of that, they were coming off 2 wins in the last weekend of November. As an added bonus, it was the Pink in the Rink night for Burlington and they featured their pink jerseys while Oakville suited up in their Blue jerseys for the first time on the road this season.

Oakville dominated possession in the opening 20 minutes. They were fore-checking well and effectively clogged up lanes in the neutral zone with bodies which made it difficult for the Cougars to break out of their own end. When they did break out of their own end, the Blades would lay huge hits along the wall. Early on, Tokarz and Thacker blasted through their opponents with clean and heavy body checks. By the time the period was over, Oakville had kept the home team to only 1 high danger scoring opportunity and 8 shots while the Blades collected 11 shots and 4 high danger chances. 

In the 2nd, play was mostly controlled by the Blades. This period, however, saw scoring chances go up for both teams drastically as we saw more push and pull play from both clubs as opposed to the first. This time, shots were 17-14, still in favour of Oakville while dangerous chances were even at 6. Wang and Churchill worked together on the top line to combine for half of those high danger chances. Impressively, Akimov added another 2 from dangerous areas and clearly adopted a shooting mindset, registering 5 shots on goal in the second period. Despite all of these shots and chances, neither team could find the back of the net after 40 minutes of play.

The final frame is where everything changed. Burlington came out on a mission and quickly scored. Then a couple minutes later, they did it again. McCarthy tried everything he could and he shut the door time after time throughout the period to try and keep this game within reach for his team. In an unfortunate turn of events, there were quite a few loose pucks in front, which caused the first two goals and eventually Burlignton cashed in again halfway through the 3rd. Oakville tried pulling the goalie 7 minutes later but it wouldn’t work as they would end up giving up a fourth goal as the Cougars sealed the deal. Final score, 4-0 Burlington Cougars. 

Even having controlled two periods of play, it wasn’t enough for the away squad to walk away with 2 points that evening at the Central Arena. It is still a good sign that they were able to play well through 2 periods against one of the best teams in the league. However, the game is 3 periods long and the team will surely look to use that as a learning experience moving forward to not make the same mistake again. It is small consolation, but the Blades were really outstanding in the faceoff dot. No center was below 50% and Dawson Lukey went 12/19 giving him a 63% draw efficiency on the night. Full boxscore here: http://oakvilleblades_ojhl.wttstats.pointstreak.com/boxscore.html?gameid=3602610. Next up the Blades travel to Collingwood as the take on the Blues.

Collingwood Blues

The Blades players and staff all gathered at the Sixteen Mile Sports Complex on Saturday to board the bus that would take them up north to Collingwood for their 5:30 PM matchup with the Blues. Collingwood sits atop the North/West Conference so the Blades knew that they would have to play great hockey if they wanted to return to Oakville with some points. It wasn’t meant to be in the end for Oakville but 2 Blades forwards scored very crucial goals that will bode well for them in the future. 

The score after the first was largely due in part to some undisciplined tripping and high sticking penalties which led to 2 power play goals being scored on McCarthy at 8:59 and 12:53. The Blues controlled most of the possession and the Blades were able to scrape together a few shots but ultimately did not score in the 1st period. 

The 2nd period didn’t start well for Oakville but certainly ended better than the first. After giving up a goal 28 seconds in that sent them down 3-0, the Blades would begin to find their rhythm and were beginning to generate chances. It was 7 minutes later when Oakville would put themselves on the board. After a successful zone entry off of a dump and chase, the puck squeaked out of the scrum to Luc Modry who quickly shot it on net. Standing in front with his stick firmly on the ice was #17 Logan Yovetich who deflected the puck and it soared up into the air. It flew up into the air and landed perfectly behind the Blues goalie and slid into the net for the rookie’s first OJHL goal!

The team celebrated, and they were about to again shortly. 30 seconds later the team found themselves in their own end and after a few attempts to poke the puck out of the zone, Jack Churchill finally managed to clear it by chipping it over the stick of a Blues player. The effort didn’t stop there, however, he then decided he was going to chase the puck which was now sliding towards centre ice. One defenceman from the home team was too close to the wall on one side and Churchill only had to beat out one more player for a breakaway. Churchill got to the puck just before the defenceman.

After what was pretty much a neck-and-neck start at the red line, Churchill pulled away from the defenceman. Rather impressively by Churchill, this player he beat in a footrace had almost 200 games of OHL experience but was cleanly outskated by Churchill. As he was rapidly coming face-to-face with Collingwood’s goalie, he made a couple quick movements of the stick but in the end kept it simple by sliding it straight through the wickets of the goalie to pull Oakville back to within a goal. 

In the last half of the game, Collingwood would score 4 more. It could have easily been more but Sam Edmands, who came in as the netminder for the 3rd period, made countless monster saves in the 20 minutes he played in an effort to keep Oakville as close as possible. Full boxscore here: http://oakvilleblades_ojhl.wttstats.pointstreak.com/boxscore.html?gameid=3602661. Although it wasn’t the weekend the Blades were hoping for, they have to move on quickly as they have another tough opponent coming up Friday, December 9th in Milton.

By Ty Brooks