THUNDER BAY – In the team’s 20-year-history, it’s not often the Lakehead Thunderwolves find themselves in must-win territory, at least not during the regular season.
But that’s exactly where the team finds itself in 2021-22, entering Friday night’s contest with the No. 6 Brock Badgers in desperate need of a win to snap a four-game losing streak and keep their fading playoff hopes alive.
A two-minute span in the third period might just have saved their season.
While the Thunderwolves still have plenty of work to do to secure a spot in the OUA men’s hockey postseason, they gave themselves a chance against the Badgers, scoring three times in a 1:52 span to break open a 2-2 game at Fort William Gardens, and went on to down Brock 7-4.
The win helped them keep pace with the York Lions (2-4-2), who edged Toronto 4-3 in overtime. The three teams are separated by a single point, the Varsity Blues up a point in third and the Lions and Thunderwolves tied for fourth.
Both York and Toronto have three games in hand with Lakehead, so every win counts for the blue and gold.
Kevin Stiles had a pair of goals for the Thundrwolves, his fifth and sixth of the season, and said the win couldn’t have come at a better time.
“It was a huge win. For (Max) Wright to step in there, the goalie, he played phenomenal and took us in for the win,” said Stiles.
“We just kept calm on the bench after the tying goal and rallied together. All four lines were going at the same time.”
Coming off three games that saw the Thunderwolves give up a combined 23 goals, coach Andrew Wilkins shifted things up in net, giving the start to Wright, the third-stringer for most of the season.
The game’s No. 3 star, Wright stood tall for 40 minutes, only allowing one goal, Cole Thiessen blasting a shot from the point through traffic with the Badgers up a man, the puck going untouched into the LU net.
Tyler Ho evened the score 37 seconds later, floating a puck over Brock goaltender Mario Pecchia, the two teams taking a 1-1 score into the intermission.
Stiles had the lone goals of the second, tipping home a Colin Van Den Hurk shot from the point, but Thunder Bay’s Ryan Burton knotted the score at two 2:08 into the third, pounding home a backhand the beat Wright.
Greg Smith, Stiles and Dylan Massie set the Gardens crowd of 1,325 afire later in the period, Smith starting the rally off when he picked the top corner on Pecchia’s glove-hand side. Stiles buried a Ben Badalamenti pass from behind the net to make it 4-2 and Dylan Massie added to the Badgers misery 32 seconds later.
Brock pulled Pecchia for an extra attacker on the power play with seven minutes to go, but Greg Fox ruined that plan with a shorthanded empty-netter.
“It’s a good response by our group. I thought they had a good work week, especially after last weekend. Moving forward we wanted an opportunity to respond and I give our guys a lot of credit,” Wilkins said.
“It seemed like we started to get stronger as the game went on. I thought our second was really good and the first 10 minutes of the third was great. I liked our team’s speed and we were able to get pucks behind them. I thought it really wore them down a bit. I didn’t really love our last 10.”
The Badgers managed to halve the LU lead from four to two, Jared Marino and former Lakehead forward Caleb Boman solving Wright.
But Greg Fox tossed the puck in to the second empty net of the night at 19:03 of the third to secure the win.
The two teams meet again on Saturday night, the Wolves regular season home finale. It was their first home game since Nov. 20.
Claw marks: Brock assistant coach Jerome Dupont is a former NHLer who played for Chicago and Toronto in the 1980s. He was the 15th overall pick in the 1980 draft ... There were 137 minutes in penalties assessed in the third, following a fight between LU's Cole Edwards and Brock's Burton.
FIRST PERIOD
Scoring: 1. Brock, Thiessen 2 (Roach, Guy) 3:53 pp. 2. Lakehead, Ho 7 (Mack, Kuczek) 4:30. Penalties: Blackwell LAK (boarding) 1:58, Pucci BRK (high sticking) 10:22, Thiessen BRK (slashing), Ven Den Hurk LAK (unsportsmanlike conduct) 13:31, Gaylor BRK (tripping) 14:04
SECOND PERIOD
Scoring: 3. Lakehead, Stiles 5 (Van Den Hurk, Auger) 13:28. Penalties: Auger LAK (tripping), Brack BRK (unsportsmanlike conduct) 8:23.
THIRD PERIOD
Scoring: 4. Brock, Burton 1 (Guy, Boman) 2:08. 5. Lakehead, Smith 2 (G. Fox, Jette) 7:33 pp. 6. Lakehead, Stiles 6 (Badalamenti, Jette) 8:52. 7. Lakehead, D. Massie 2 (S. Fox) 9:25. 8. Lakehead, Mack 4 (N. Massie) 13:18 sh en. 9. Brock, Marino (DeDonato, Thiessen) 15:44. 10. Brock, Boman 2 (Kyle Brack) 18:12. 11. Lakehead, G. Fox (Wojciechowski, Blackwell) 19:03 en. Penalties: Shaeffer BRK (boarding) 5:50, Burton BRK (roughing, misconduct, misconduct), Edwards LAK (roughing double minor, misconduct, misconduct, game misconduct), DeDonato BRK (interference), Schaefer BRK (misconduct, misconduct), Jette LAK (misconduct), Peters LAK (misconduct), Wojciechowski LAK (misconduct) 10:42.
GAME DATA – SOG – Brock 10-14-7-31, Lakehead 12-16-8-36; Power plays (goals-chances) – Brock (1-2), Lakehead (1-3); Goaltenders – Brock: Mario Pecchia, Lakehead: Max Wright; A: 1,325.
