Lakehead was needing a strong performance to close out the regular season tonight against Ryerson and they got just that.
The Thunderwolves broke the ice late in the first period as Greg Smith would streak in and roof a shot past Garrett Forrest to send the boys into the intermission with the 1-0 lead.
The second stanza saw both teams combine for 5 goals in total in a back-and-forth period.
Ryerson’s Aaron Hyman (Brother of Oilers Zach Hyman) snap a shot past Aiken that he appeared to not expect to tie the game up at one.
Joe Mack would respond a little over a minute later wristing home a beautiful behind the back pass from Tyler Ho to put the Wolves up by one.
Ryerson would come right back Shorthanded when Kyle Bollers would slap home a quick pass from Chris Playfair past Brock Aiken to even the game up once again.
Kevin Stiles would get Lakehead going putting the puck between the post and Forrest from a sharp angle which surprised the netminder and gave the Wolves the lead.
Dylan Massie would put the Wolves up by two heading into the break burying a big rebound past Forrest :.
Ryerson would get within one in the third as David Miller would tuck in a lose puck of the boards from behind the net on the powerplay but this would be as close they would get.
Brock Aiken would make multiple clutch saves in the third period to preserve the win for Lakehead.
Lakehead (6-9-1 13pts) now sits fourth in the Far West division one point up on York (5-7-2 12pts)
Lakehead will now wait and see what happens in York’s remaining two games against the Ryerson Rams on Wednesday March 9 at 7:15pm and Saturday March 12 at 4pm
If Lakehead and York are tied at the end of the season the first tie breaker is Regulation wins + Overtime wins (ROW) Lakehead has 6 total vs York’s 5.