Hockey Wolves need help to claim second

The Lakehead Thunderwolves are going to need a little help to hang onto second in the OUA West.

After battling back Saturday night to erase a two-goal deficit to the Waterloo Warriors, the Wolves surrendered a pair of goal in the final two minutes of regulation and went down to a 5-3 road defeat in their OUA regular-season finale.

The loss, combined with Windsor’s 3-2 upset win of Western, means Lakehead must hope Windsor drops its final game on Sunday or the Thunderwolves will slip to third place.

Waterloo jumped out to an early 2-0 lead on goals by Justin Larson in the first and Josh Woolley 51 seconds into the second.

Rookie Luke Judson got the Wolves on the board 1:20 later, netting his 15th of the season on Waterloo goalie Keaton Hartigan.
But 35 seconds after that the Warriors were back up by two, courtesy of a Jeff Einhorn tally.

Chris de la Lande pulled Lakehead within a goal at 4:57 of the second and the game would stay 3-2 until 5:42 into the third, when Matt Caria tied the game shorthanded.

However, with time running out Brett Mackie potted the winner at 18:08, beating Alex Dupuis, and Jarred Parent found the empty net to finish it off.

Regardless of what happens on Sunday, the Thunderwolves (17-9-2) will host an opening round playoff game next weekend, against either Waterloo or York.