A Snowball’s Chance in Hell?

Nathan Bessey had his Osprey working in typical fashion, working hard and grinding out victories.  With Steve Power back in the lineup, it was full on.  Power got in and forced a turnover to Taylor McKay behind the Evergreens goal, and McKay spotted Ethan DeBruyn in front and made a quick pass.  Ethan one touched it right through the 5-hole of Trevor Pate to open the game’s scoring just 1 minute into the match.

It took until the last few minutes of the period to see another goal, this one when Nathan Bessey chipped a puck up to Matt Ryder.  Ryder was on a 2 on 1 but no-one will remember the other man because Ryder shot it, catching the goalie cheating a little, and his short side shot made it 2-0 for the Osprey, which is how the period ended.  The Osprey had been controlling the bulk of the players with their Defense doing a solid job of keeping high risk shots on goal.

In the second period, Chris Ryder made an incredible sliding or falling, or something like that play as his brother Matt made a pass across the net to Matt Pellerin.  Pellerin thought he had a glorious chance, but as Chris collided with Pate in net, the two of them combined to keep the puck out as Chris flailed and the puck hit his stick, then the pad of Pate and went wide.

A spate of penalties plagued the second period as things got a little testy.  As Landon Miron went to clear a puck on the penalty kill, he had his stick tied up and then stripped, leading to a shot on goal and Nick Elford banged in the rebound at the side of the net for a 3-0 lead.

Matt Ryder had just stepped out of the box when James Harrison made a nice pass across the net to Landon Miron to break Matt Baird’s shutout with 3:45 left in the second, but Ryder would make up for it when he scored on a bit of a disjointed play with 1:34 to go.  The Osprey took the win and the 3 points pushed them up to 39 on the season with the Aurora doing their best to keep pace in second.

The Aurora were next door taking on the Eurekas in a game that everyone expected would end in an easy Aurora win.  The Eurekas however, were fresh off a big Shootout W as they felt the Ayers effect.

Rowan came in to the opening draw against Matt Simpson and won the draw cleanly, setting the tone for the entire game as the seasoned veteran could be heard saying “yeah!” After the faceoff in excitement.  It was contagious, and the Eurekas perked up.  The game was surprisingly even and the line of Cody Meisner, Marcus Briand, and Jeff “Snowball” Snow, were buzzing.  They had multiple scoring chances including a breakaway where Snow went backhand but was denied by Logan MacLean.

The posts were getting plenty of work at both ends and it wasn’t until the 2nd period that the mesh of the net saw some action.  Leighton Yeo opened the scoring and did a little celly to the Aurora as he promised he would if he scored.  Chris Stickings quickly levelled the score for the Aurora, but Yeo again gave the a Eurekas the lead, this time his celly to the Aurora did not go over well as a frustrated Aurora bench was upset to be down 2-1 with 11 minutes to play.

It was a lead that would hold for a while and then Matt Simpson thought he had scored on a down low chance, but Nick Stryniak was able to get a foot on the puck and hold it just in front of the line.  On the same shift David Lacey came in and fired a wrister that went off Stryniak’s shoulder, up and over and into the net to tie the game with less than 5 minutes to play.

This game was going to a shootout.  After months of struggling, the Eurekas had points in back to back games.  The shootout started with the Aurora, and let’s forego all the little details, the shooters were just straight up bested by Nick Stryniak and Logan MacLean who were not having it.  It was the 6th round and the Aurora had already been turned away when Snowball steps up.  Jeff skates down and in his head he’s thinking “I got stopped going backhand during the game.  I’m gonna do it again”.  So he rolls down the ice picking up speed and he goes to the backhand again.  This time he moves more laterally than before and his backhand goes just over the left pad and under the glove of MacLean.  The Eurekas win!  

Has Shannon Farrell created the a winter version of the Wolfpack?  Will the Eurekas be the team to watch out for in the playoffs as they figure it out at the right time?  Only time will tell, but all I can say for sure is they have a chance.