After forty minutes of play in their matchup with the Windsor Lancers on Wednesday night, it looked like the luck of the Waterloo Warriors men's hockey team wasn't about to change.
The Warriors, stuck in a seven-game losing skid, were down 3-2 to the Lancers in a more-than-physical affair. They'd outplayed their opponents thoroughly, but bad bounces and untimely turnovers had all ended up in the back of their net. Meanwhile, the tilted ice was evened by a red-hot goalie at the other end, and frustrations from their winless streak were starting to bubble.
To make matters more complicated was what the game meant in the standings: the Lancers came into the evening with a five-point edge on Waterloo for the last playoff spot in the OUA West division, and a loss would severely hamper the Warriors' postseason aspirations.
But instead of wallowing in their misfortune, the Warriors chose a different path in the third period. Behind some outstanding performances of their veteran leaders, they chose to turn around their own luck – and they might have just turned around their season in the process.
Cam Nicoll (Loretto/) scored a pair of shorthanded goals, and captain Mike Moffat (Waterloo/) notched the game-winner as the Warriors exploded for four tallies in the third period en route to a 6-3 victory over the Lancers at the Columbia Icefield Arena in Waterloo.
The win improves Waterloo's record to 6-11-3, and it pulls them to within three points of the Lancers for the eighth and final playoff spot in the OUA West division, with a game in hand. Michael Morgan (Scarborough/) finished with a goal and two helpers, while Keigan Goetz (New Hamburg/) and Eric Diodati (Niagara Falls/) chipped in with two points apiece. Rookie goaltender Trevor Martin (Ardrossan/) turned aside 24 shots to earn his first career home ice win.
Meanwhile, the Lancers fell to 6-9-6, as their hold on a playoff spot became more tenuous. Alex Friesen notched a goal and an assist for Windsor, while Todd Ratchford added a pair of helpers. Jonathan Reinhart was outstanding in the Lancers crease, turning aside 42 shots – many of the highlight variety – in the loss.
But what ended on a sour note for Windsor certainly didn't start out that way, as the visitors turned the momentum from some early Reinhart saves into the game's opening goals. First, it was captain Blake Blondeel who handcuffed Martin with a zinging wrister from the left wing to make it 1-0, before Friesen took advantage of a turnover to make it 2-0 Lancers just past the midway point of the period.
Morgan got the Warriors on the board just under two minutes later, when he whacked home a pinballing rebound off a Ryan Hanes (Kanata/) point shot to cut the Lancers lead to 2-1. But that scoreline was short-lived, as Chris Scott made a move to slip a loose puck past Martin, restoring the Windsor two-goal advantage.
Late in the opening frame, though, the Warriors drew back to within one on the man advantage, when Adam Bignell (Kitchener/) floated a waist-high wrister from the point. It was deftly tipped home by Goetz, cutting the Windsor lead in half once again, and making the score 3-2 after an eventful first period.
And while the middle stanza didn't include any goals, it was just as action-packed. The post-whistle physicality that simmered slowly in a few instances in the first became an outright boil in the second, as the two rivals combined for a total of nine minors and eight 10-minute misconducts in the frame. Meanwhile, the Warriors outshot Windsor 13-6 in the second, but Reinhart made some key stops to frustrate Waterloo and keep the score 3-2 after 40.
But the Warriors were determined to flip the script in the third period, and they authored the first scene before the period was a minute old: With Lee Dower (Conception Bay/) in the box and Windsor looking to extend their lead on the power play, Nicoll picked off a puck at the Lancers blue line and beat Reinhart with a backhand move to the blocker side to square the score at 3-3.
With momentum firmly on the side of the black and gold, Waterloo's captain picked a perfect time to get the goalless monkey off his back. At the tail-end of a power play, Moffat took a Diodati feed and fired a quick wrister past the expert screen of Goetz and into the top shelf past an unsuspecting Reinhart, giving the Warriors their first lead of the game.
With under seven minutes to play in regulation, though, the Lancers got their chance to equalize when Daniel Perigo (Truro/) was whistled for a hooking minor behind the play. But any hopes the Lancers had of tying the game with a power play marker were dashed just 22 seconds into the Windsor mad advantage, when Morgan forced a turnover in his own zone and broke in on a 2-on-1 with Nicoll. A perfect pass and a rocket one-timer later, Nicoll had his second shorthanded goal of the period, and the score was 5-3 in favour of the Warriors. Mitchell Smith (Plainfield/) scored late into an empty net, salting away the biggest win of the Warriors' season to date.
The black and gold will now look to win two in a row when they visit their cross-town rivals, the Laurier Golden Hawks, on Saturday, January 20 at the Waterloo Rec Complex. Then, the Warriors will renew hostilities with the Lancers once again, on a monumental two-game road trip to Windsor on January 26-27.
