A Night of Epic Proportions

Semi Final Wednesday kicked off with the Wolverines, 5th place finishers in the regular season, taking on the 7th place Sable.  Just under 2 minutes into the game, Kyle Donnelly moved down the left wing, and with Rhys Carter following up the play, Donnelly made the pass.  Rhys fired a hard shot on goal and beat Jared Worth on the short side.  Despite the goal, the play was dominated by the Wolverines early as they peppered Nick Stryniak in the Sable's goal.  

 

The Wolverines extended pressure and myriad chances were just that, pressure and chances, they weren’t amounting to anything on the scoreboard, even with three power plays in the first period.  With 2:20 to go in the first, Keaton Hicks saw Nathan Bessey looking for a breakaway and he threw a pass up around head height which Bessey caught and put down in front of himself as he went in alone on Stryniak.  Nick was the better man on the play, making the save on what had potential to be a highlight reel goal, and the period ended with the Sable ahead 1-0.

 

The Wolverines' mounting pressure finally found a release as Mike Bourgeois, as per usual, found himself pounding away from 4 inches out to tie the game just under a minute into the second period.  No floodgates opened however and it would take another 10 minutes of hard battling before we’d see the Wolverines take their second penalty of the period.  The Sable took a number of shots but then Bessey forced a turnover in his own zone.   He saw a lane and put his head down and went for it.  Conor MacLean was in hot pursuit but he couldn’t quite catch up as Bessey found the five hole of Stryniak to give the Wolverines their first lead of the game.

 

Confidence went through the whole Wolverines lineup and they started locking things down in their end while still forcing the Sable to defend.  Joey Richard took a point shot that was saved by Stryniak with a rebound out directly to Bessey, his shot was also saved, then Logan MacLean was more to the side of the net with a tougher angle, but as the puck came to him, Stryniak moved across the net.  Logan kept his shot low instead of going for the spot that had been open, and slid it five hole for a massive insurance marker.

 

The final nail in the coffin came off the stick of Mike Bourgeois whose shot went glove side through a small space, pushing the score to 4-1 where it would end.  The Wolverines players would stick around to see who they would be playing for the championship on Monday.

 

One game left to decide a finalist; the basement bottom Wolfpack, coming in off a massive upset over the top team, against the 3rd place Starrs who had been a model of consistency all season long.

 

The Wolfpack opened the scoring at 13:33 of the first when Kyle Ervin, a man who proved himself to be a playoff performer in the winter, took a point shot which beat Phil Sprague on the blocker side.  This game was full of intensity and everything was being done with effort, but a bad clearing attempt from the Wolfpack zone was stolen by Kenzie Wadden.  Kenzie found cousin Anthony, and Anthony had Pete Swistun alone in front.  Ethan DeBruyn raced back, sliding to break up the pass, but the puck made it to Swistun and he shot the puck immediately.  Trevor Pate, heating up at exactly the right moment, pushed off from his right to his left, and got his pad on what looked like a sure goal, covering the rebound as well.  At 10:35 in the first, this could have been a game saver.

 

A few minutes later, the Wolfpack, whose players were fired up after that big save, got the puck to perpetual net misser Bryce Hirtle.  Bryce took a clapper because his controller apparently is broken and only the slapshot button works.  His shot actually went on net (what?,?!) and Jared McLean got a stick on it and the 1 goal lead turned into a two goal lead.

 

With an electric bench on the Wolfpack side, the Starrs weren’t feeling defeated, no, to the contrary, they were fully confident in their abilities at both ends of the ice.  Nick Marshall had the puck in the Wolfpack zone and looking to feed a pass across the net from the left wing corner, he sent a puck along the ice through the crease.  Noah Joncas was there defending and as he turned, the puck went off his skate and slowly deflected across the line.  This just 30 seconds after the McLean goal.

 

Then Scott Stewart drove down the right wing and took a backhander that ramped up off Pate’s stick and up into the net.  One minute after the Wolfpack took a 2-0 lead, the Starrs had tied it.  The blue bench deflated and the Starrs upped their pressure.  Between that Starrs goal and the end of the period, neither team found a goal, so both teams had a minute to regroup at the break.

 

In the second period, the game continued to be full of offsides and pucks out of play.  Whistle after whistle with the rink’s audio system broken, but there was enough tension in the rink filling the void left by the music that many didn’t notice.

 

Off what appeared to be a nothing play, Jake Rankin battled for a puck in the Starrs zone and won it, he tried for a wraparound and failed, but his momentum took him to exactly where the rebound went and he grabbed the puck again and he roofed it over the shoulder of Sprague and off the back bar to give the Wolfpack another lead.

 

Back and forth the game went, big chance down low for Derick Levesque all alone, Sprague stones him on the deke.  Nick Marshall with a rocket, Pate gets a shoulder on it, the game was in control by neither team.  Finally, with 5:06 left in the final frame, Kenzie Wadden fired a shot from near the bottom of the left circle and it went through the legs of Pate along the ice and we were tied once more.  The momentum was on the Starrs side.  2 minutes later, Nick Marshall got the puck at the point and walked in, moving from left to right he took a wrister as he got over the ringette line and beat Pate’s outstretched blocker.  The Starrs had their first lead of the game.

 

The TSN turning point was still to come.  With 1:46 to go, a puck was sent down the ice for Jake Rankin.  Rankin and Anthony Wadden raced for it.  They were neck and neck and their skates clipped as their shoulders came together.  Rankin went down and the refs saw a trip, so that was the call.  Wadden wasn’t happy with the call and vocalized it to the refs.  Slamming the penalty box door in frustration, he was given an additional 2 minutes.  The Wolfpack were suddenly on a 5 on 3 at a pivotal moment in the game.  

 

The Starrs had Kenzie Wadden, Blake Isenor, and Mike Chassie, on the ice defending against 6 Wolfpack players as they had pulled Pate.  The Starrs were defending well, Sprague stopping one-timers from top shooters like Matt Anderson and Derick Levesque.

 

All three Starrs came out to stop one of Anderson’s shots.  Wadden laying out for the block, Isenor dropping to a knee, and Chassie standing up, but the puck didn’t hit any of those bodies, it made it through to Sprague who somehow got a pad on it.  The only problem was that Jake Rankin and Derick Levesque were now all alone in front and Levesque got the puck and scored to tie the game with just 40 seconds to go.

 

The Wolfpack were still on the power play but they never managed a solid scoring chance before time expired.  For the first time in league history, a non finals game was headed to overtime instead of a shootout.  We started with 4 on 4, well 4 on 3 until the penalty expired, and expire it did.  No-one was resting on their laurels, the teams both busting their asses trying to win their shot at a berth in the finals.

 

One of the best early chances came when Trevor Pate struggled to cover a puck and it came out to Jeff Miles who poked it as a quick whistle came.  Whether the puck crossed the line or not I'm not sure but the whistle had gone and the Starrs players on the ice didn’t contest it.  With 52 seconds left in the 5 minutes of 4 on 4, Derick Levesque got the puck with no-one between him and Sprague.  He threw a hard shot on the blocker side, but Sprague saved the game in what looked like a sure goal situation.

 

The Wolfpack then took a penalty and our game dynamic changed once more.  The Starrs tried everything but the Wolfpack have some of the league’s best defencemen.  Kyle Ervin made a great sliding stick poke to steal a scoring chance, Noah Joncas went to the ice to block shots, and the team came together to clear everything.

 

We went down to 3 on 3 but had to start 4 on 3 due to the penalty overlap.  It was anyone’s game still and the time kept ticking away with no end in sight.  The goalies were freezing it every chance they got.  Scott Stewart took a shot for the Starrs and Anthony Wadden raced to the goal as Pate made a good kick save.  Wadden was pursued by Matt Anderson and they reached the loose puck to the left of Pate around the same time but Wadden got it and his backhand towards the empty net was denied as Pate went all Hasek and reached back to get it.

 

7 minutes into the second overtime, the Wolfpack’s Ryan Boucher won a draw to the right of Phil Sprague.  His clean win went back to Kyle Ervin, the guy who had opened the scoring 90 minutes earlier.  Erv’s shot was along the ice and it hit Kenzie’s stick and deflected.  Bryce Hirtle and Boucher were in front of Sprague.  The puck went from going towards Sprague’s midsection originally to going on a trajectory between Hirtle’s legs and Hirtle let it go right through and into the bottom of the net, Wolfpack win! 

 

Holy schnikes! The 8th place team’s Cinderella story continues as the Wolfpack will face the 5th place Wolverines in what is a matchup identical to the previous summer.   Can the Wolfpack go back to back, or will the Wolverines win their first championship?  Ironically, the captains on these two teams changed this summer, but the two men with the C on their jerseys are the same two who battled for the Nomad Cup in the winter, so they will no doubt have some scores to settle.

 

We will be in for a good game on Monday August 26th, so come out at 7:00 to see who wins the Summer Championship.