The Dalhousie Tigers men’s hockey team lost their season opener 4-1 against the St. Mary’s Huskies on Oct. 10 at the Halifax Forum.
“We had spurts where we were doing good things but I think we need a more consistent effort if we want to win in this league, especially against that team,” said Dalhousie’s assistant captain Matt English.
Saint Mary’s opened the score 40 seconds into the game. Huskie’s forward Taylor Burke passed the puck across the ice to teammate Gerrard Grant in front of the Tigers’ net. Grant tapped the puck in to make the score 1-0.
In the second period, Saint Mary’s scored again when defenseman Kyle Pereira took the puck from right corner in Dalhousie’s zone, skated in front of the Tiger’s net, deked out the goaltender Corbin Boes and shot the puck into the open net to make the score 2-0.
Later in the second period, Dalhousie forward Felix Page missed the net on a short break away. He regained the puck behind Saint Mary’s net and passed it out in front to Fabian Walsh who shot it into the net. However, the goal was called off because Daniel Walsh interfered with the goalie. The Tigers were not pleased with the call.
“It’s just the way the game goes,” said English. “We got to be able to fight through it. It’s unfortunate that it happened but it’s a call we got to be able to play through. We can’t make excuses.”
The Tigers made up that no goal call at 11:02 into the second period when Tiger’s forward JP Harvey passed the puck in front of the Huskie’s net to Fabian Walsh. Walsh whacked the puck a few times before he finally scored to cut the Huskies lead in half at 2-1.
However, 49 seconds later, the Huskies scored again on a weird goal. Kyle Pereira shot the puck from the point. The puck deflected off Huskies’ forward Mitchell Maynard and flew up in the air. Dalhousie goaltender Corbin Boes lost track of the puck until the puck came back down and landed in the Tigers net. The goal gave the Huskies a 3-1 lead.
In the third period, Huskies’ forward Steven Shipley scored a beautiful goal. He received the puck that was passed behind him, tapped it through his legs and maneuvered it in front of him. Then, deking out Boes, he put the puck into the net. This made the score 4-1 two and a half minutes into the third period.
The Huskies out-shot the Tigers 32-20 in the game. English realizes that even though they had a decent amount of shots, the team still has some work to do on their attack.
“We worked on a couple of new breakouts that had some success, just not consistent enough. We got to keeping working at it.”
First-year forward Phil Gadoury also thought the offense had some success. He feels that the team needs to capitalize on their scoring chances.
“Our fore-check was really good, we turned some pucks over. We just need to put more pucks in the net.”
Both English and Gadoury realize that this is a long season and they have to approach the season one step at a time without getting too caught up on one loss.
“We are still working on finding our identity as a team,” said English. “Once we find our identity we can start playing some more consistent hockey; then the wins will start coming. It’s a process.”
“Our focus right now is to get better every day and we are getting better everyday,” said Gadoury.
The Tigers’ next game is Friday, Oct. 16 at UPEI at 7 p.m.
Recent Comments