In their final regular season game, Carleton Ravens men’s hockey team suffered a 2-1 overtime loss to the Queen’s Gaels.
Despite the loss, the Ravens received a boost as Ravens head coach Marty Johnston, along with forwards Corey Durocher, Michael McNamee, Brett Welychka, and Ryan Van Stralen returned from the 2017 Winter Universiade in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
“I’ve been away for three weeks and coming back it was very evident that we were playing with good structure,” Johnston said.
It was the final regular season game for several Ravens, including McNamee and Durocher, as they’ll be graduating at the end of the academic year.
“I thought [McNamee and Durocher] both played well tonight,” Johnston said. “With both of them graduating this year, I think they felt that it was important that they played and good on them, but you know the real season is ahead of us now.”
“Now it’s about the playoffs and preparing for that,” he said.
Queen’s opened the scoring midway through the second period when defenceman Nevin Guy took a slapshot from the point that beat Ravens goaltender François Brassard.
Carleton tied the game with 14 minutes remaining in the game when forward Brent Norris found himself wide open in the slot and scored a power play goal.
In overtime, a centring pass from Queen’s forward Dylan Anderson deflected off a Ravens defender and beat Brassard shortside.
Despite falling 2-1, the Ravens managed to limit Queen’s offensive chances thought the game and heavily outshot them 37-13.
“[The players] worked hard and obviously got a lot of shots on net, but at the end of the day it’s about generating chances,” Johnston said.
Following the conclusion of the regular season, the Ravens found themselves in a three-way tie for fourth place with the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR) Patriotes and the University of Ottawa (U of O) Gee-Gees.
With the loss coming in overtime Carleton managed to get a point, which put them in a three way tie for fourth place with the University of Ottawa (O of U) and Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR).
The Ravens were ultimately seeded fourth based on the number of wins, along with their goal differential in head to head games against the other two teams.
Carleton will open the playoff at the Ice House on Feb. 15 when they host the Patriotes in a best-of-three series.
The two teams are familiar with one In the past five season, UQTR has eliminated Carleton in the playoffs four times.
“They’ve had our number the last number of years so I think we will certainly be the underdog in the series,” Johnston said. “But we will take it game by game, and we know they’re extremely talented top to bottom from the net out.”
The Ravens will be looking toward McNamee and Ryan Van Stralen for offence this postseason. In 20 career playoff games, McNamee has 25 points, while Van Stralen put up six goals in seven postseason games last year.
– Photo by Cameron Penney
