The No. 5 Lakehead Thunderwolves defeated OUA Far West divisional rivals Laurier 3-2 in an exciting game Friday night at the Fort William Gardens in Thunder Bay.
The Wolves now have a 20-3-1 OUA record (24-7-1 overall); good for 41 points and the best record in the OUA. Lakehead remains in first place in the very competitive OUA Far West Division; three points ahead of Western and seven ahead of Laurier. Lauriers OUA record goes to 15-8-2; good for 32 points and they remain in third place in the OUA Far West. The other divisional game between Western and Waterloo was cancelled due to the bad weather in Southern Ontario.
Lakehead was led by assistant Captain Tobias Whelan who played a strong overall game and notched a goal and an assist. The other Lakehead goals came from Brock McPherson and Kriss Hogg. Lauriers goals came from Rob Dmytruk and Tyler Grover.
Shots on goal were 30-23 Lakehead in the game. Laurier was 0-6 on the powerplay while Lakehead went 0-3. With the win; Lakehead tied their team record for most home wins in an OUA season with 11. They are also on an eight-game regular season winning streak; two shy of the team record; but the longest uninterrupted streak in Lakehead history.
Lakehead netminder Chris Whitley, who played very well for the Wolves especially during the second period when Laurier had a lot of powerplays, recorded his 14th win to tie the Lakehead record for most regular season wins. Whitley is now 14-0 in OUA action. Laurier netminder Jeff MacDougald played a very strong game; making a lot of excellent stops.
The Wolves hit four posts in the game while the Hawks rang one post as well as a crossbar.
Lakehead got on the board first at 4:56 when Brock McPherson converted a beautiful passing play from Dan Speer and Mark Soares; beating Lauriers MacDougald. MacDougald made two great saves off Lakeheads Mark Soares. Lakehead made it 2-0 shorthanded at 16:31 when Kris Hogg converted a great setup from Tobias Whelan and Pierre-Marc Guilbault. Shots on goal were 9-8 Lakehead in the very quick first period.
The Hawks came out flying in the second and took the play to the Wolves and were rewarded when Rob Dmytruks point shot squeezed through Lakeheads Whitley at 1:33; assisted by Luke Girard and Craig Voakes. Whitley came up big in the Lakehead net; stopping a series of Hawk opportunities during Lauriers three powerplays. Lakeheads Whelan missed on a breakaway; firing high. Shots were 11-10 Wolves in the second.
Laurier again came out fast to start the third and were again rewarded early when Tyler Grover fired a shot from the point that deflected past the Wolves Whitley at 2:35. Laurier then had the edge in play for the next ten minutes; though the Wolves had their chances with quick long-strike counter-attacks. Just such one of those happened at 15:06 when Andy Zulyniak hit a streaking Tobias Whelan with a rink long pass and Whelan sped in alone on Lauriers MacDougald and beat the netminder with a nice deke before backhanding it in. The other assist went to Matt Jacques.
The goal ignited the Wolves and they peppered MacDougald for the remainder of the game and the Laurier netminder made a series of good saves. Laurier pulled MacDougald with under a minute left but the Wolves played strong defense to ice the game and get the win. Shots in the third were 10-5 Lakehead.
The Molsons Three Stars, as chosen by Leith Dunick of Thunder Bays Source, were:
1) Lakehead: Tobias Whelan
2) Laurier: Tyler Grover
3) Lakehead: Shandor Alphonso
The two teams play again Saturday night and it faces off at 7:30 pm EST and will be videowebcast live on the News-Cast.com Sports Network; with ordering information available at http://events.news-cast.com/events/Lakehead. Alan Wickware, the home vo