The New Year hasn’ t started well for the Portage College Voyageurs hockey team, as the team dropped their first home-and-home games of 2015 to the Grant MacEwan Griffins.
The New Year hasn’ t started well for the Portage College Voyageurs hockey team, as the team dropped their first home-and-home games of 2015 to the Grant MacEwan Griffins.
Last Friday the Voyageurs were in Edmonton to face off against the Griffins, losing a tight game 4-3. They were in action again at home on Saturday, and despite playing a strong opening 40 minutes, they couldn’ t keep up the pace in the third, eventually losing 7-4.
Portage got out to a flying start in the first period of Saturday’ s game, not allowing the Griffins time or space with the puck and checking their opponents hard. The aggressive start work to the Voyageurs’ favour, as the Griffins took a kneeing penalty at 4:31 to give the Voyageurs the man advantage.
It took Portage only 13 seconds to capitalize on the powerplay, as Cory Giroux put a shot past MacEwan goalie Tanner Novacs, with assists from Tanner Quinn and Russ Payne.
It was the period’ s only goal; Voyageurs goalie Adam Iwan stopped every shot he faced in the opening frame.
Both teams got a chance to show their resiliency in the second period, as the Griffins and Voyageurs played a period of back-and-forth hockey that saw them both battle back from behind.
Tyler Plamer got things rolling for the Griffins midway through the second after the Voyageurs got into penalty trouble, giving their opponents a long two-man advantage.
The Voyageurs would retake the lead soon afterwards on a powerplay of their own though. Jordon Geddes parked himself in front of the Griffins net, and redirected a pass just past the outstretched leg of Novacs to put the home team back up by one.
The Griffins tied the game back up less than two minutes later, before taking their first lead of the game on another powerplay goal at 16:57.
It was the Voyageurs turn to battle back, and they did when Portage forward Cody Koskimaki took a pass in the slot and slid the puck underneath Novacs to tie the game back up at 3.
Koskimaki’ s goal was the last one of a frantic second period.
Justin Sotkowy put the Griffins back on top just 57 seconds into the final frame with a low knuckler from the point that fooled Iwan.
Shortly after, Sean Poitras would score the game winning goal, taking advantage of an unlucky bounce off of a Portage defender to rifle in his second of three goals (and five points overall) on the night.
Portage looked to have some life late in the period, when Koskamaki snuck a bad-angle shot by Novacs, but the excitement was short-lived. On the ensuing face-off at centre ice, Portage turned the puck over at their blue-line, giving Poitras a clear breakaway and his hat-trick goal. Poitras goal came only seven seconds after Koskamaki’ s.
The game’ s final score was 7-4.
Head coach Jim Knight said the Voyageurs second-period penalty trouble gave the Griffins a chance to get back in the game.
“We take a penalty, that was retaliation after a hit, then we take a lazy penalty when we were short-handed that put us down 5-3. It changed the whole momentum of the second period,” he said. “We took seven minutes worth of penalties that we had to kill in the second period, and it cost us.”
Knight was even less pleased with the Voyageurs third period performance.
“We stood around and watched. We tried to do too much in our own end. We were giving up breakaways and odd-man rushes - it can’ t happen,” he said. “It’ s January already and the same mistakes are happening. It’ s unacceptable.”
Knight’ s assessment of the game as a whole was blunt.
“We pissed away two points tonight,” he said.
The Voyageurs don’ t have any games scheduled this week, but will be back in action on January 23 when they play a home-and-home stand against Augustana.
You can catch the first game of that weekend set at the Bold Center on Friday, January 23.
