The men’s hockey team are 17-5-0 looking at their last six games of the regular season after winning two of a weekend series against the Concordia Stingers. The team is ranked third in the east division, behind Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières and McGill, after earning three points on the weekend.
The first of the pair of games, on Jan. 22, was played on away ice. The Ravens won 4-3 in overtime after killing off all six of the Stingers’ power plays in regulation time.
Connor McLaren put the Ravens on the board less than four minutes into the first period, sending a rebound between the pipes for his first goal as a Raven.
Mitch Zion redirected a pass from the stick of Joey West past Stingers goaltender Robin Billingham to give the Ravens a two-goal lead.
A shorthanded goal against netminder Pat Killeen left the Ravens leading by one through a scoreless second period until three minutes into the third, when David Weckworth fired through traffic to make it 3-1.
Two power plays allowed for the Stingers to gain momentum, scoring both in under two minutes to send the game to overtime.
Francis Dupuis, starting goaltender in the second game who is leading the league in goals-against-average (2.04), said the team needs to take less penalties.
“We need to improve our discipline to stay out of the penalty box. We have the most penalty minutes in the league and that is unacceptable,” Dupuis said.
After killing the seventh Concordia power play of the game, defenceman Derek Brown lead a rush down the left wing and centred the puck for West, who scored the overtime winner.
Defenceman Jason Seed said special teams played a large role in the win.
“Both penalty killing and power play have been improving over the past few games coming back from the Christmas break. I think that has given us more of an edge and helped us on our latest winning streak.”
The win gave Carleton a 9-1 record on the road and a win in the first of two back-to-back games against the Stingers.
The Ravens played the second game of the weekend on home ice, shutting down star Concordia forward and captain Olivier Hinse to secure a 4-1 win.
“It’s always a challenge personally as a goalie to keep players of Hinse’s caliber off the score sheet,” Dupuis said.
He said Hinse (13th in the league for points) was not a concern for the team.
“We are confident that our players, coaches, and our systems are good enough to keep players like him off the score sheet,” he said.
The game remained scoreless until halfway through the second period, despite offensive dominance from the Ravens.
The first two goals came from forward linemates Brett Welychka and Michael McNamee less than 90 seconds apart. McNamee’s was his 15th of the season and he now leads the team with 15 goals in 22 games.
Welychka’s pair of assists on Saturday put him at a total of 25 assists in the regular season, tied in the country for first place. With one goal and two assists on the night, the rookie forward was the Ravens’ player of the game.
The first game was quieter from the first line but following the second, Welychka said, “Personally, I’m always looking to find strides in my game. With two elite linemates, all I need to do is make sure I’m ready to go, and as a line we will make things happen.”
After scoring the previous night’s overtime winner, West gave the Ravens a three-goal lead scoring at the end of the second period.
In the final period the teams each scored a power play goal, Concordia’s coming at the 7:45 mark and Carleton’s with a little more than five minutes left of play. Ryan Van Stralen’s goal continues his point streak to five games.
Seed said the difference between the overtime and regulation wins was puck control.
“There were times in Friday’s game that we let Concordia dictate the pace of the play, but we didn’t give them that chance on Saturday,” Seed said.
The Ravens are on the road next weekend, hitting the ice against the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) Ridgebacks on Thursday Jan. 28, and on Friday Jan. 29 against the Queens University Gaels.
In their first meeting of the season, the Ravens lost to UOIT 3-1, and against Queen’s the Ravens are 1-1 after a loss of 3-0 on Oct. 31 and a win of 3-2 on Jan. 19.
“We lost to UOIT earlier this season, so it will be a good challenge for us to get the win against them on Thursday,” Seed said.
“Queen’s has a very strong team, but we managed to play well against them last week and come out with the win, so as long as we stick to our game plan I think we will be successful.”
