Photo Credit: Spencer Smye / OJHL Images

Georgetown Raiders

The first of two opponents in back-to-back home games was the very strong Raiders team. A very defensively strong team that sits near the top of the league meant that it was going to be a challenging game for the Oakville Blades who are trying to get into a playoff spot. This game was extremely offense heavy with both teams recording 30+ shots and scoring a total of 11 times. This fast paced game was good for the Blades confidence offensively but also shows how much work is still to be done on the defensive side of the puck.

The first period score really reflected how much work there is yet to be done in order to compete with the top teams in the league as Oakville would already be down 3-0 after 20 minutes. Players from the opposing team were having a very easy time walking into dangerous areas of the ice and firing shots on the Blades netminders, both of whom saw ice time in this game. 

In their first 5 minutes back into the 2nd period, it only got worse. An even strength as well as a powerplay tally went in to extend the already big lead to 5 goals instead of 3. With this game having slipped away from the Blades very quickly they had to respond very, very fast to avoid a complete catastrophe. They did, with a power play marker on a lately surging Blades power play. This one comes off the stick of Luke Johnston thanks to a clean faceoff win from Alcaraz and a juicy rebound off of the shot from Brown. It wasn’t much, but it was a start of the Blades offense and more importantly a temporary pause to the Raiders momentum. 

The next goal of the game also belonged to the Blades. This one was at 15:26 of the period and demonstrated the ever improving scoring depth of the team. Logan Yovetich cashed in with his 3rd of the season from directly in front of the net, the same place his other 2 goals came from. Before the puck went in, there was some nice play down low by Gianmarco Caringi. He collected the puck and confidently used his body to cut through checks and protect the puck as he cut towards the middle of the ice. He dropped a pass to Conor Thacker who unloaded a heavy wrist shot that the goalie couldn’t handle and Yovetich capitalized. The 2nd period ends as 5-2 Georgetown.

Upon entering the 3rd, it would have been very easy to be demoralized once again as the Raiders scored early. That was not the case as Oakville would strike back with 2 goals in 5 minutes. The first came off a fantastic play from Gleb Akimov who managed to push the puck past the defender at his own blue line before charging around him for a clean breakaway. Akimov is used to scoring from tight angles so having all this space to work with was no issue for him as he froze the goalie and roofed looking confident that he would score the whole time he was skating towards the net. 

The next goal came from the man whose name appears the most under the goal column for our club, Matthew Wang. He can score in many different ways but this time it was a result of him being wide open along the right side (not sure why another team would let that happen) and just beating the goalie cleanly over the glove. Bonus points to Aidan Taylor for having the superb vision to spot him. As an added bonus it was on the man advantage too.

While the game would carry on until an empty net goal at 19:31 of the 3rd period, the Blades would lose. Despite missing out on 2 points, the team had a very productive night on the attack. The last 3 matches against Georgetown have resulted in a single goal for Oakville every time, putting the total in the last 3 games against the Raiders at 3. The Blades scored 4 on this night. The Blades have certainly had better defensive performances but all is not bad after this game. Full boxscore here.

Next up at Sixteen Mile, the Lindsay Muskies make their only appearance against Oakville this season. Lindsay holds a very similar record as the Blades so it is certain to be an entertaining contest when the two teams go at it.

Lindsay Muskies

Wow! We knew that since the Muskies and Blades held similar records that it was going to be a good matchup, but it was even better than that! The night was headlined by its grittiness, scoring and some noteworthy individual performances. Most notably, the 2 former Toronto Titans (U18 AAA) who registered great performances on the night. Wells, recorded 4 assists, dominated in the faceoff dot and was all over the ice against Lindsay. Akimov really displayed his offensive prowess by scoring a goal and adding 2 assists for 3 points on the night.

Surprisingly, the game started oddly similarly to the previous day's game versus Georgetown as Lindsay would score twice in the 1st while keeping Oakville off of the scoresheet entirely. It wasn’t that the Blades weren’t getting chances, they just had some poor luck converting. 

Everything changed for the better right from the very start of the 2nd period. Oakville potted 4 goals to Lindsay’s 1.This brought them into the lead by the end 40 minutes of play. 

The initial goal to begin the comeback came at 3:37 and was scored by the night’s first star, Gleb Akimov. Upon receiving the puck at the blue line he immediately chipped it past the pressing defenceman and began to skate around him. Upon barely getting around the Muskie he took a couple seconds to process and then quickly wound up with the increasingly popular toe drag shot. The release off Gleb’s stick was lightning quick and it beat the goalie over the shoulder with ease. 

The next Blades goal came 3 minutes later and was a power play marker! Some great puck movement saw the puck wind up on Aidan Taylor’s stick down low where he fed Wang last night for a nice goal. This time, what he did was even more impressive as he made a spinning behind the back pass straight onto the tape of Jack Churchill! Churchill was later quoted talking about how great the pass was saying “he tries not to miss those” referring to the easy tap in goal he had. The Blades had now brought the game back to even, and they weren’t done yet. 

Wells and Akimov combined for assists on the next goal scored by Noah Patrick, his 2nd of the season. This one, admittedly less flashy as the first two, was just as important as it pushed Oakville into the lead. Patrick showed why it’s always a good idea to go to the net and managed to stuff the puck in on his backhand as it just squeaked between the goalie and his post. 3-2 Oakville. 

Lindsay would score again shortly after but just as the period was wrapping up Johnston lasered a one-timer past the goalie’s blocker to put the Blades back into the lead. 

The 3rd switched back to being an even game with the Muskies tying it up at 4 early on and everyone could tell that this game was going to need extra time.

It wasn’t until 4:09 had elapsed in 4-on-4 overtime that the game winning goal was scored. Johnston got the puck and decided to slow the play down, giving time for Josh Vagenas to slip past a Muskies player and break down the left wing. He steered towards the next and waited until the goalie overcommitted before snapping it home past the glove. What a way to cap off a huge Blades win and get 2 points in the playoff race! The crowd of 300+ was pumped to see one of the final home games end in such thrilling fashion. Full boxscore here.

In what will be much stiffer competition, the team is traveling to Pickering to square off against the Panthers in a weekday afternoon game.

Pickering Panthers

After two home games on the weekend, the Blades made the drive out east to Pickering for a Tuesday afternoon match against the Panthers. The game would play out in a similar fashion to the Georgetown game earlier in the week, except this time there were a lot more penalties. Beyond even just penalties, plenty of hits were being thrown in this one and it made the matchup quite interesting. Despite Crisp notching 2 goals in a little under 5 minutes and Taylor continuing to ride the hot hand with 2 assists in this game, the Panthers would come out as the victors in this one. 

After an eerily similar start to the last 2 games, the trend was continued with Oakville being outpaced, out chanced and outmatched in the 1st period. They let in 2 goals on 17 shots against while only being able to register 6 shots of their own, definitely not enough to keep them in this one.

As mentioned above, this game was similar to the Georgetown game earlier as the Blades would take a little bit of extra time before getting on the board in the 2nd. After letting in 2 more to go down 4-0, the Blades would tally their first of the evening. It would come off the stick of Marco Costante who would swoop down low into the offensive zone at just the right time to scoop up the puck. Then, from an angle many would think wasn’t possible, he scored just below the glove. Marco Costante collected his 10th goal of the season which launched him into 4th of the team and 1st among defencemen in that category! Scoring 10 goals as a 17 year old rookie is impressive, let alone a defenceman!

The 2nd period would wrap up with not too much else happening. The score would be 4-1 by the end with the shots then sitting at 32-15 in favour of Pickering. 

Although it was too little too late, the 3rd period was the period of the Blades. In the final 20 minutes of play they outshot and outscored the competition in a last ditch effort to keep the game alive. It all started at 3:08 into the 3rd when there was a loose puck that neither Taylor nor Wang could put into the net after both scrambling at the sight of the loose puck. Flying in with his opportunity in sight was Crisp who had the puck on a silver platter by the time he got there and put it in the net. 

Following another Panthers goal, Jacob Crisp would strike again. Off of a nice cross-ice pass from #13 Aidan Taylor, Crisp leaned into a heavy one-timer on a bobbling puck that went straight to the top shelf! It was very clear that the goalie was not expecting the puck to come off of his stick at such high speeds and with such accuracy. The Blades had now amassed 3 goals bringing them to a slightly more respectable 5-3 score. 

Pickering scored again with a goal that would end up being the insurance marker as even with less than 1 minute left, the Blades were not going to pass up an opportunity to score. While shorthanded, Gianmarco Caringi was waiting in the neutral zone for the oncoming Panthers player. This Pickering player took a huge unprovoked spill and left just Caringi, the puck and the goalie all alone. He skated towards the goalie from the left side and faked the cut across before slipping the puck five-hole on his backhand for a beautiful display of his hands and a goal!

That goal would wrap up scoring in this one, a game that would end 6-4 in favour of the Pickering Panthers. Full boxscore here.

Despite the loss, this marks the 5th game in a row where the Blades have scored 4 or more goals. The teams they have been doing it against aren’t slouches either with Aurora, Collingwood, Georgetown, Lindsay and Pickering being the names on that list. This is a notable change from the rest of the season where the team would average just over 2 goals per game. Even with the loss, there are many positive ways you can assess the work the Blades did and the team will have a great opportunity to bounce back when they play Brantford on Thursday, February the 9th at 7:30 PM.

By Ty Brooks