THUNDER BAY – The extra hour of sleep really didn’t do the Lakehead Thunderwolves much good on Sunday afternoon.
The Wolves were caught off guard in the opening period by the visiting Toronto Metropolitan Bold, surrendering four goals in the first 20 minutes and went on to lose their fourth straight OUA contest, falling 5-1 at Fort William Gardens.
TMU scored twice on the power play, giving them five in 10 chances with the man advantage over two games and unlike Saturday night, there was no valiant comeback attempt in this game, which was originally scheduled for Friday night.
Fog in Toronto kept the Bold`s plane grounded, and it appeared the T-Wolves were in a bit of a fog in the first as Connor Bowie, Kyle Bollers, Jesse Barwell and Dustin Hutton fired shots passed LU goaltender Brock Aiken, making his first regular-season start.
“Sometimes you get into penalty trouble and they’re a team that’s going to capitalize on the penalties all the time. They’ve got some big guys who put up big numbers and they love the power play,” said defenceman Colin Van Den Hurk, who scored the lone goal for Lakehead on the power play, breaking Kai Edmonds’ shutout bid 4:24 into the second.
“Staying out of the box would be one, and we need to be aware when they’re on the ice and be able to shut them down, but also be able to play with the puck. The more we have the puck, they don’t have the puck.”
Lakehead coach said when teams make mistakes against the Bold, more often than not they’re going to pay for them.
“We definitely made the mistakes, mis-executed on our penalty kill and had untimely penalties as well. They’re just a team that you’ve really got to be sure (against) and unfortunately, they made us pay. It was definitely humbling for sure.”
Wipe out the first and the Thunderwolves stood tall with the Bold, even outshooting them in the third, but more importantly, only allowing a single goal.
Credit Max Wright, who came on in relief after Aiken gave up four goals on 11 shots, for building a wall in front of the LU net. Wright was good on 18 of 19 shots he faced, giving his team at least a chance.
Van Den Hurk cut the TMU lead to three early in the second, the goal a thing of beauty as he wove his way through the opposition defence and powered a shot past Edmonds.
“I saw their D gap was kind of high. They have some big D, so I thought I could maybe expose them a little bit. We all contribute on the power play and I was just lucky enough to have that gap to get through and (the puck) snuck through,” said the second-year blue-liner, who spent time in both the Ontario Hockey League and Quebec Major Junior Hockey League before arriving at Lakehead last season.
Lakhead (4-3-2) are back on home ice next weekend to face the Brock Badgers on Friday and Saturday night in another key OUA West battle.
FIRST PERIOD
Scoring: 1, TMU, Bowie 2 (Doherty) 6:05. 2. TMU, Bollers 10 (Gursoy, Hyman) 15:16 pp. 3. TMU, Barwell 3 (Bollers) 19:38. 4. TMU, Hutton 1 (unassisted) 19:46. Penalties: Wells TMU (boarding) 0:35, Hyman TMU (cross checking) 7:56, Gerrie LAK (interference) 15:03, Shankar TMU, (unsportsmanlike conuct) Williams LAK (cross checking) 19:59.
SECOND PERIOD
Scoring: 5. Lakehead, Van den Hurk (Wright) 4:24 pp. 6. TMU, Barwell 4 (Hyman, Bollers) 11:24 pp. Penalties: Portolakis TMU (hooking) 1:51, Bollers TMU (hooking) 3:19, Doherty TMU (tripping double minor) 5:19, Auger LAK (interference) 7:06, Auger LAK (holding) 10:47, Whittaker LAK (holding the stick) 18:24.
THIRD PERIOD
Scoring: None. Penalties: Roberts TMU (interferences) 1:08, Brand TMU (head contact, misconduct), Blackwell LAK (slashing) 6:13, Dempster LAK (7:44), Mack LAK (tripping) 14:46.
GAME DATA – SOG – Toronto Metropolitan 11-11-8-30, Lakehead 8-7-10-25; Power plays (goals-chances) – Toronto Metropolitan (2-6), Lakehead (1-7); Goaltenders – Toronto Metropolitan: Kai Edmonds, Lakehead: Brock Aiken; A: 1,180.
