Photo Credit: Spencer Smye / OJHL Images

The Blades travelled to Brantford on Thursday, February 9th to face the 99ers. This was an absolutely incredible game that featured an offensive clinic from the Blades matching their season-high in goals with 7 on the night! That wasn’t even the most impressive part of the evening. Jacob Crisp, our Assistant Captain who made the transition from defenceman to the wing at the beginning of this year, netted an incredible 5 goals! He simply could not miss as he rocketed shot after shot straight into the netting. 

The great performances don’t even stop there. Lachlan Wells strung together an impressive playmaking spree registering 4 assists against the 99ers! Defenceman Luc Modry and Andrew Brown piled on with 2 assists each as the whole line-up played a factor in this dominant win. The skaters were great, but so was netminder Sam Edmands who stopped 22 of 24 which led to him earning his 2nd career win between OJHL pipes!

The first goal came only 11 seconds into the game as a nice bank pass from Brown landed on the tape of Wells. He charged into the zone and put a nice backhand feed straight onto the tape Crisp who seemed to have gotten lost in defensive coverage. A big wind up led to a powerful snap shot that flew right past the goalie for our first goal of the game! The next goal would come only 3:46 later when Crispy would get back at it again for his second of the night. The next goal came off of a clean faceoff win from Wells and Crisp got the puck, took a second, and just fired the puck and the net and as luck would have it, he pots his second of the night. It was 2-0 Blades just 4 minutes into the game.

Now in the 2nd period, the Blades would strike once again. This time it was Gianmarco Caringi, who’s confidence has obviously grown based on this play. A game changing save from Sam Edmands at one end led to the puck being pushed back out of the Blades zone quickly and Caringi was sprung for a 2-on-1 with Aidan Russell. He looked off the goaltender initially debating whether he should pass or not, very quickly he decided he was going to shoot and took a shot glove side that quickly found its way into the back of the net. 

It would only take another minute for Oakville to score again. This was definitely the most impressive goal of the night and it came off the stick of none other than Jacob Crisp! Battling for the puck along the boards in the offensive zone led to the puck being pushed out to the center and Crisp went hunting for it. He had just scooped the puck up when he tripped and fell. Then while falling, Crisp took a desperation shot at the net and it went in! Hat trick for Jacob Crisp and the first hat trick of the season for the Oakville Blades!

The goals would keep pouring in throughout the rest of this period too. We even got treated to a 5-on-3 power play goal when Matthew Wang, who was positioned down low on the 2 man advantage, was given too much space to work in front of the net and used his long reach to beat the goalie for the 5-1 goal. Then, just 3 minutes later on another power play, Aidan Taylor produced what is probably the best single play effort we’ve seen in a while from anyone on the team. Taylor gained possession of the puck at the blue line and dangled through 3 players before fooling a 4th into thinking he was going to shoot. He didn’t shoot, instead saucered a sweet dish straight to Crisp who slammed home his 4th of the night! A crazy assist combined with a 4 goal (so far) performance was amazing to watch!

As we entered the 3rd, the team skated onto the ice up 6-1 with Crisp sitting at 4 goals. The game would finish 7-2 after Crisp pounded a one-timer home from just beyond the dots and the team was ecstatic. A 7 goal, 50+ shot performance is all any team could ask for and then some. This will most certainly help the team close the gap on Stouffville for that coveted last spot in the postseason race. Full boxscore here. 

An overall team effort like Thursday night is exactly what they will need to produce as they are taking on the Milton Menace in another intra-conference game Sunday the 12th at 2:00 PM. The two teams are squaring off for the first time since the exhilarating 2-1 win from Oakville that featured a 60 save performance from Gavin McCarthy! The boys will be ready!

By Ty Brooks