The Lakehead Thunderwolves beat the Carleton Ravens 4-3 in a shootout at the RBC Christmas Challenge on Friday night at the Fort William Gardens in the Thunder Bay, ON.
Lakehead came out in the first period looking to avenge Thursday nights sloppy game. The Thunderwolves came out hitting, and were intent on putting more pucks on Ravens starting netminder Ryan Dube.
The focus paid off early, as new recruit Thomas Frazee buried a nice pass from Thunderwolves co-captain Andrew Wilkins, just 1:25 into the opening frame to give Lakehead the early 1-0 lead. The other assist was credited to Mike Hammond.
The Wolves kept pouring on the pressure, and were once again rewarded at 8:46 of the first on a nice tic-tac-toe passing play by Trevor Gamache and Matt Caria, finished off by Adam Sergerie, putting Lakehead in front 2-0.
It was an extremely chippy second period that saw 69 minutes in penalties, plenty of big hits and lots of after the whistle scrums; including one that got Lakeheads Mitch Fillman ejected from the game for fighting, even though his gloves did not come off.
Lakehead made Carleton pay for its ill-timed penalties, as Chris De La Lande scored on a rocket wrist shot from the point to put Lakehead in front 3-0 on a 5-on-3 power-play. The lone assist was credited to Adam Sergerie at 18:52 of the second.
Carleton got on the board at 5:22 of the third period, when forward Joey Manley fired a puck past Lakehead starting netminder Jeff Bosch.
Manley scored his second of the night and pulled Carleton to within one at 9:59 of the third period, after he snuck the puck past Bosch from the side of the net. The Ravens tied things up after some very questionable calls from the referee, on a power-play goal from forward Jeff Hayes.
Overtime decided nothing, so it was on to the shootout where Adam Sergerie was the only player to score for both teams, giving Lakehead a crowd-pleasing 4-3 win.
The Molson 3 Stars of the game were:
1st Star- Adam Sergerie (Lakehead)
2nd Star- Joey Manley (Carleton)
3rd Star Chris de la Lande (Lakehead)
The Wolves return to action on January 6th and 7th on home ice, in a crucial OUA West Division battle with the Waterloo Warriors.