Jan 10, 2013 | cshanks | 395 views
Muskies End Regular Season with a Win
The Lindsay Bantam Muskies finished off the 2012-2013 regular season with a strong come from behind win against Pickering. The team outplayed Pickering from the outset and gave a full 15 player team effort but struggled to finish off plays through the first 42 minutes of play. The Muskies kept pressing however and eventually found the back of the net twice in the final 3 minutes to pull out a 2-1 win.
The team controlled the play through the early part of the 1st period but could not convert. The team applied constant pressure during a 4 minute powerplay with good chances from the line of Cameron Robinson, Caileb Duffy and Liam Shanks but the Pickering goalie was able to keep the puck out of the net and the score tied at 0. With 5 minutes left in the 1st, and Pickering gaining momentum from the 4 minute penalty kill, they were able to take a 1-0 lead.
The 2nd period again saw the Muskies control the play for long portions of the period without being able to score the equalizer. This period saw strong forechecking by the line of Dryden Brown, Cody Defreitas and Drake McQuarrie which created scoring chances and good penalty killing on 2 separate Pickering powerplays by d-men Curtis Appleton, Jaryd Lapointe, Riley MacIver, Hunter Reedman and Garrett Fierheller. This allowed the score to remain 1-0 heading into the 3rd period.
The 1st shift of the final period saw goalie Tanner King make a key save to keep the score at 1-0. After that initial shaky shift the Muskies settled down and again controlled the play for much of the period however with no luck in finding the back of the net. Still trailing 1-0 with 6 minutes to go the Muskies took a careless penalty. Once again strong penalty killing lead to a momentum shift and with just under 3 minutes to go the Muskies scored the equalizer with the strong passing play from the line of Dawson Bruce, Zack Rhodes and Matt Cooke. Matt Cooke scored the goal with assists going to Zack Rhodes and Garrett Fierheller. Then with under a minute to go the line of Duffy, Robinson and Shanks applied a relentless forecheck which resulted in the winning goal by Cameron Robinson (assist to Caileb Duffy) with only 12 seconds remaining. The game saw several of the players have some of their strongest games of the year led by Hunter Reedman who played an excellent defensive game.
This was a very positive way to end the regular season as the team prepares for the All Ontario Playdown Preliminary round against Port Hope with the series starting in Port Hope on Sunday (Jan 13th) at 7 pm and game 2 back in Lindsay on Saturday (Jan 19th) at 3 pm.