V7

Game 3 of 3 on Monday night was between the Wolverines with a nearly full bench, and the Voyaguers whose lineup included a mere seven skaters.

As you would expect, the Wolverines opened the scoring.  Rohan Dempsey drove the net and deked past Andrew Lowery for the goal.  Josh Stevens had a great scoring chance in front a minute later as he was alone and Andrew Lowery was the only one he needed to beat.  Lowery telescoped out and shut Stevens down.  Now, this is the exact moment that the good times were over for the Wolverines.  

Cobee MacNaughton got the game even with a rebound goal from a tough angle.  He was literally standing with his feet behind the goal line, the puck in front of the goal line, about 6 feet from the net as he shot.  20 seconds later, Bo Lowery cut across the slot and shot against the grain to make it 2-1 Voyageurs.  Pat Dufour powered a shot through Ashton Speight shortly after that and it was 3-1 Voyageurs.

The Wolverines looked to have given up in many ways as their frustration was showing, but they still had good scoring chances.  Isaac Pelley deked a bunch of guys and unfortunately ended up getting denied, and then Derek Hale had a great pass to a back door Jeff Snow, but Snow couldn’t connect.  Lowery made a massive blocker save on Michael Bourgeois with 25 seconds left in the first as the score stayed 3-1 after 1.

The Voyageurs continued to play hard in the second.  Cobee hit the corner cross bar at 14:48.  Then Pat Dufour sniped on the PP, which was responded to by the Wolverines Josh Stevens just off a draw. Cobee then found the top shelf on a one timer on a 2 on 1.  The game was very heavily in the favour of the 7 man roster, and despite a late push from the Wolverines, the Voyageurs would hold on for a 6-4 victory, becoming the second team with 7 players to win a game in a matter of a few weeks.  It would have been a 7-4 victory, but Cobee’s long distance shot at the end of the game was just a fraction of a second too late crossing the line into the empty net.

On the Wolverines side, Michael Bourgeois somehow managed to be a +3 as he factored in on 3 of his team’s 4 goals.  

After Monday night, the Voyageurs have just a single game remaining and will be hoping for a lot of help should they want to finish as high as 4th, while the Wolverines have the most games remaining with 3, and could finish as high as 5th if they beat the Astros, Starrs, and Sable in those 3 games, though they will still need help for that to happen too.