THUNDER BAY – In the end, it was too little, too late for the Lakehead Thunderwolves.
The T-Wolves spotted the Toronto Metropolitan bold a six-goal lead on Saturday night, on home ice, and dropped a second straight game to a team that entered their weekend trek to Fort William Gardens with one win in six games, falling 6-2.
Ian Martin, Joe Rupoli and Connor Bowie scored in the first 9:35 of the contest – Martin in the first 10 seconds, to be exact – and had control of the game from the outset.
It was not the weekend LU captain Noah Massie was hoping for, he said after the team lost again on home ice.
"We were looking forward to coming back. We love playing TMU, it's a big rivalry. So to lose these four points, it's a big thing for us," Massie said. "We'll just get back on track on Monday. Obviously you're not going to win every game, but to lose like we did tonight is not acceptable and we know that."
It was a tough couple of days, said Lakehead coach Andrew Wilkins, interviewed by Thunder Bay Television after the contest, saying back-to-back blowouts weren't the script they'd drafted heading into the weekend set at the Gardens.
"They got the better of us, but I think it's a lesson learned and that's the approach we're taking moving into next week," Wilkins said, adding there weren't really any silver linings from the two-game set.
"I thought we were able to generate offence, but it's a tough one that you want to just learn from."
Jaden Condotta added a goal to the lead in the second period and Bowie and Kevin Gursoy scored 55 seconds apart early in the third to put the game completely out of reach.
Nicolas DeGrazia finally snapped Kai Edmonds’ shutout bid, scoring his third of the season at 14:52 of the final stanza. Justin Paul added a second LU goal, his fifth of the season, but it wasn’t enough as the Wolves dropped back to .500 at 3-3-1.
Wilkins said once again, the Wolves dug themselves too deep a hole. On Friday night, after the two teams played to a 1-1 tie in the opening period, the bold rattled off four straight in the second to jump in front 5-1. In the rematch, it was six straight over the first 55 minutes or so.
"I thought the start, going down 3-0 early was tough. It obviously put us in a big hole against a good team. The start was a lot to come back from. I thought we had some opportunities to score, but we've got to clean up defensively, clean up our neutral zone and make it harder for teams. I think they took advantage of a couple of holes that we had this weekend.
Carson Cherepak stopped 24 of 30 shots, with Eric Vanska serving as his backup on the bench.
Edmonds faced 29 Lakehead shots, stopping 37.
"He made some saves," Wilkins said. "We had a lot of chances. If we can keep a couple out and we can defend better, and if we can catch a bounce against (Edmonds) it might have been a different story, but that's just the way it goes sometimes."
The Wolves head to Nipissing on Nov. 2 before returning home for four straight against Nipissing and Guelph.
