The No. 8 ranked Lakehead Thunderwolves swept the Ryerson Rams over the weekend with a 3-1 win Sunday afternoon at the Lakeshore Lions Arena in Toronto. The win raises the Thunderwolves OUA record to 7-3-0, and puts the Rams at 0-9-0 in conference play. Lakehead had won the first game of the series 7-2 on Saturday night. The game was quite different than Saturday night's, with the Rams coming out and playing a hard-checking style and Ryerson goaltender Braden Deane making a lot of key saves that kept the Thunderwolves offense at bay for the most part in the first two periods. The Thunderwolves outshot the Rams by a wide margin, and stepped up play in the third to seal the victory. The Thunderwolves were lead by Chris Shaffer with his 10th goal of the season.
Most of the play early in the first was in the neutral zone, with neither team able to generate a lot of dangerous scoring opportunities. Both teams had some chances in the opening 10 minutes of the first period, but both Lakehead's Cory MacEachran and Ryerson's Braden Deane were sharp early. Then, at 14:57, Ryerson's Mark MacMillan, opened the scoring when Lakehead couldn't clear the puck our of their zone. MacMillan was set up in front of the Lakehead goal by David Anthony and Tyler Moss. The Thunderwolves replied quickly at 16:11, when Chris Shaffer jumped on a loose puck in a goalmouth scramble in front of the Ryerson goal, and flipped it over a sprawled Braden Deane. The assists went to Matt Kenny and Jeff Adduono.
The second period began similar to the first with both teams marking each other closely, and neither able to develop good offensive chances early. Braden Deane made a nice stop off Lakehead's Shawn Perring at 9:30, during a Lakehead powerplay. Then Ryerson's James Byck took another minor making it a 5 on 3 for Lakehead and the Thunderwolves Jeff Richards made it pay at 10:03. Richards jumped on a rebound off a shot by defenseman Erik Lodge to make it 2-1 Lakehead. Ryerson's Deane saved a sure goal when he reached back and smothered a rolling puck just before it went across the goal line. He had saved the initial rocket blast from Lakehead's Mark Robinson but the puck had trickled by him rolling towards the goal.
The third period saw the Thunderwolves pressing early, but Ryerson's Deane kept the puck out of the Ram's goal. After a an intense barrage of shots by the Thunderwolves, Murray Magill beat Deane on a beautiful shot from the slot at 9:20, assisted by Matt Kenny and Erik Lodge. Lakehead's Cory MacEachran made 2 nice saves at the 12:00 minute mark, and then Ryerson's Greg McMillan dinged one of the post 30 seconds later. Lakehead's Hugo Lehoux was called for cross-checking at 18:28 and Ryerson pulled their goalie to use 6 skaters against 4. Ryerson's Brent Spagnol ripped a shot off the faceoff that Lakehead's MacEachran had to be sharp on. Ryerson was then called for a minor, nullifying their powerplay opportunity. Ryerson pulled the goalie again with 40 seconds left but were not able to generate any chances as the buzzer went.
Full marks go to Ryerson goaltender Braden Deane for playing a great game and keeping Ryerson within striking distance, stopping 47 of 50 Lakehead shots while Lakehead's Cory MacEachran was also solid, stopping 25 of 26 Ryerson shots.
Lakehead Head Coach Pete Belliveau said it was another solid team victory. "This was a great road victory, we only allowed 3 goals in two games and that's what I like to see. We had a lot of quality shots today, and their goalie played a great game making a lot of excellent saves. We didn't play with our normal lineup this series due to Jason Lange being out, so we used two defensemen (Bartlett and Williamson) as forwards which lead to some adjustment in our play, but, all in all, a great result."
Lakehead hosts the Queen's Golden Gaels next weekend in a two game series to end the first half of the OUA regular season. The game