THUNDER BAY – For 13 seasons, the Lakehead Thunderwolves absolutely owned the York Lions.
It’s been an entirely different story over the past three-and-a-half campaigns.
Since their second meeting of 2014-15, the Lions had rolled off nine straight wins over their OUA West rival, a streak that hit 10 on Saturday night thanks to a pair of shorthanded goals and a 38-save shutout performance by York goalie Mack Shields at Fort William Gardens.
The loss was Lakehead’s sixth straight, a slump players and coach Bill McDonald are desperate to end in a hurry, knowing the task doesn’t get any easier next weekend when they hit the road for a trio of games against Ryerson, Windsor and the red-hot Western Mustangs.
McDonald was not thrilled with the penalty kill.
“It was terrible,” he said.
“One of them was probably a bad break, but the other one was a bad decision on our part. We lost the draw clean, we didn’t battle for the puck and they rimmed the puck. It was a planned play and (Jake Ringuette) got caught on his wrong side with his stick. Goals like that in a game like this kills you.”
Morgan Messenger broke free down the left side from his own blue-line and fired it past Lakehead goalie Devin Green to make it 2-0 Lions with 18 seconds left in the first.
Jackman made it 3-0 Lions with 4:16 to go in the second, connecting on a 2-on-0 shorthanded break.
“It was just a couple of bad reads on the blue-line,” said Lakehead captain Dillon Donnelly. “Those are definitely things that cost us. I thought our effort level was there tonight, it was just a couple of mental mistakes that cost us.”
The T-Wolves had more than their fair share of chances to break through on Shields, who withstood every barrage he faced.
Dylan Butler had a pair of back-to-back chances standing on the doorstep in the second, but skated away empty; ditto for Jonathon Masters just past the midway point of the period.
No Thunderwolves player came closer than Daniel Del Paggio, who found himself on a shorthanded breakaway with seven minutes to go in the second and faked out Shields, only to have the puck ring off the corner of the post.
Josh LaFrance scored the game’s first goal, his 10th of the season coming 5:10 after the opening puck drop. Alex Mowbry closed out the scoring with one second left in the third and Devin Green on the bench for an extra attacker.
Green stopped 15 of 19 shots he faced in taking the loss, dropping his record to 5-6, the seventh-place Thunderwolves falling to 10-9-4, just two points up on eighth-place Windsor and five up on Toronto and Waterloo, tied for ninth with 19 points. The top eight teams make the OUA post-season.
“It’s crunch time,” Donnelly said. “All the teams are feeling the same heat in that bottom four. It’s all tight. It’s just about putting our nose to the grindstone and coming to work.”
It was Shields’ third shutout of 2017-18 for the Lions (16-8-1).
FIRST PERIOD
Scoring: 1. York, LaFrance 10 (Rover) 5:10. 2. York, Messenger 1 (Jackman) 19:42 sh. Penalties: Campbell YRK (interference) 18:50.
SECOND PERIOD
Scoring: 3. York, Jackman (Messneger) 15:54 sh. Penalties: Fryer LAK (interference) 6:45, Vannucci YRK (roughing) 9:16, Masters LAK (cross checking) 12:06, Bricker YRK (slashing) 15:45.
THIRD PERIOD
Scoring: 4. York, Mowbay (Pezzetta, Goranson) 19:59 en. Penalties: Pezzetta YRK (high sticking) 6:11, Donnelly (roughing) 15:29.
GAME DATA – SOG – York 8-6-6-20, Lakehead 15-13-10-38; Power plays (goals-chances) – York (0-3), Lakehead (0-3); Goaltenders – York: Mack Shields, Lakehead: Devin Green; A: 1,969.
