Falcons Blank Voyageurs

Our fully loaded Wednesday lineup kicked off with a tilt between the teams with some of the best uniforms in the league, the purple and yellow Falcons, vs the vintage inspired Voyageurs.  Both teams were coming off 3+ goal losses on Monday night and in need of a win to turn things around.

Early in the first period, the Falcons got started on their turnaround.  Dustin Hall spotted Dylan Haggett cutting up the left side and hit him in stride.  Haggett got to the circle to the right of Voyageurs goaltender Andrew Lowery and beat him with a hard shot to the glove side at 14:44.  

Despite some good chances for both teams, Andrew Lowery would shut down the Falcons for the remainder of the period, as Josh McCarther would hold off the Voyageurs.

With 19 seconds left in the first period, we would have a little dust up between players and the Falcons Haggett would get ejected, while a bunch of others would have penalties which cancelled each other out.  The Voyageurs power play got a few chances in McCarther, but he made good on all incoming shots.  

Just as the Falcons returned to even strength, Jory Uhlman blocked a shot and was off to the races.  All alone with only him and the goalie in the Voyageurs zone by the time he got there, Uhlman made a big fake shot, full clapper mode, and then faked going around to the left on the forehand, and went backhand off the cross bar and in to make it 2-0 for the Falcons.

The Voyageurs nearly struck back when Nick Marshall made a pass on a 2 on 1 to Michael Finlayson.  The pass didn’t quite connect however, a near miss, but it did stay in the zone, and with the puck at the point and a clear lane to the net, Josh McCarther was moving side to side in his crease but Tony Thorpe came sliding in with the huge shot block for the Falcons as the bench erupted in cheers.

One of the scariest moments we have seen occurred early in the period.  Josh Flemming leaned into a shot from the point for the Falcons as Derick Levesque of the Voyageurs challenged.  The puck ramped up his stick and directly into his face.  He immediately put his hands to his face as he dropped.  Players all called for a whistle and the referee obliged.  It became apparent that Derick’s visor had taken the brunt of the shot as pieces of it could be found on the ice.  As he departed the playing surface, his hands to his nose, blood could be seen leaking out from between his fingers.  

A few players went to check on him and help him out in the dressing room, where we learned that thankfully, he didn’t receive a laceration from the shot, but the impact to his nose had given him a bloody nose.  Not that it wouldn’t have been painful, but he avoided a serious situation requiring a hospital visit for stitches.  He actually returned to the game with his nose plugged up and a borrowed helmet which he got from Sable captain Silas Bonnell.

Back in action, Josh Flemming’s slapshot would find the back of the net a few minutes later as he fired through a screen created by his own teammates.  The Falcons got a power play and power play specialist Robin Gareau spotted Josh Flemming in the far corner while Gareau covered his defensive position.  Flemming quickly move the puck to Jory Uhlman who had a between the legs redirection which went in five hole, his second of the night.  

Joe MacDougall would put a shot into the top corner with 90 seconds left to cap off the scoring and the Falcons would shut down any final push by the Voyageurs to break the shutout as Josh McCarther would become the first goalie to have a clean sheet this summer.