It might not be a banner season so far for Les Habitants, but the city of Montreal is still the home to two of the top clubs in USports hockey. And unfortunately for the Waterloo Warriors, they learned that lesson first-hand in a pair of weekend home games.
The McGill Redmen toppled the Warriors 6-3 on Friday night, before the Concordia Stingers skated past Waterloo by a score of 6-1 in the second half of the OUA divisional crossover weekend on Saturday at the Columbia Icefield Arena.
The pair of losses drop the Warriors to 5-7-2 on the season, as they continue to navigate the toughest stretch of their schedule – Waterloo's November opponents have a combined record of 66-24-11 entering the final days of the month.
On Friday night against the fifth-ranked Redmen, Waterloo netminder Mike Morrison (Hamilton/) nearly stole his team at least a point. But, the highest-scoring club in the league proved to be too much to overcome.
Cam Nicoll (Loretto/) opened the scoring mid-way through the first when he jammed in a rebound off a Mitch Elliot (Prince George/) shot. But late in the first, the Redmen exploded for three quick goals in the span of 2:54 – including a pair from Samuel Tremblay – to make it 3-1 after 20 minutes.
The second period turned out to be the Morrison show, as the fifth-year netminder made several highlight-reel stops: first, he stretched with his left leg to pull an in-tight deek off the goal line, then he reached back to snare a Jerome Verrier shot on what was perhaps his best save of the night. And although the Redmen scored to make it 4-1 with a power play marker at 14:53, Morrison wasn't done yet – just over 30 seconds later, he went post-to-post and kicked out a McGill one-timer right to Adam Bignell (Kitchener/), who sprung Cole Murphy (Cole Harbour/) on a 2-on-1. Murphy kept and buried it five-hole on Louis-Philippe Guindon, to cut the McGill lead to 4-2. For his efforts, Morrison was rewarded an assist on his fantastic left pad stop.
The Warriors struck again just 1:13 later when Nicoll rapped home a bounce off the end-boards to cut the lead to 4-3. Despite leading on the shot clock by a 35-19 margin, the Redmen only enjoyed a slim one-goal advantage heading into the third.
But the barrage didn't stop, and McGill would re-extend their lead early in the third when Dominic Talbot-Tassi's point shot eluded a screened Morrison to make it 5-3. A Guillaume Gauthier goal salted away the victory for McGill, giving them their league-leading thirteenth victory. Morrison made 46 saves on 52 shots in the loss, while Guindon turned aside 26 Waterloo shots.
Rookie goaltender Trevor Martin (Ardrossan/) spelled Morrison the following night against the equally dangerous Concordia Stingers, and he picked up right where the fifth-year vet left off. At one point early in the first, the Stingers led 10-3 on the shot clock, but Martin's heroics kept the game scoreless in the opening minutes.
But with Waterloo killing their second early minor penalty, Philippe Sanche hammered a one-timer past Martin to open the scoring. The undersized but skilled forward would strike twice more in the period – all off of feeds from OUA scoring leader Anthony Beauregard – to complete the natural hat trick and give the Stingers a 3-0 lead after 20 minutes.
Massima Carozza scored on a 2-on-1 just 8 seconds into the second period to further deflate the Waterloo bench. Carl Neill made it 5-0 Concordia just past the midway point, but the Warriors took over the flow of play – and the shot clock advantage – from there.
The Warriors finally cracked Stingers goalie Marc-Antoine Turcotte when Phillip Fife (Oromocto/) tipped home a Mike Moffat (Waterloo/) point shot to get Waterloo on the board. After being outshot 17-9 in the first, the Warriors had equalized the shot clock at 25-25 by the end of the second period. However, they trailed 5-1 on the scoreboard after 40 minutes.
The shooting gallery continued for the Warriors in the third, as the Stingers found penalty trouble – including a 5-on-3 disadvantage for a full 2 minutes. But Turcotte was outstanding in goal, and Phil Houdon added a beauty breakaway goal just after the penalties had ended to round out the scoring. Turcotte turned aside 50 shots in the victory, while Martin took the loss with 26 saves.
After hosting a pair of out-of-province teams, the Warriors will now turn their attention to a much more local opponent, as they'll visit the Laurier Golden Hawks in their penultimate game before the exam and holiday break. The annual school day game has puck drop slated for 11am on Thursday, November 30 at the Waterloo Memorial Rec Complex.
