The Carleton Ravens men’s hockey team split back-to-back games this weekend, losing to the Laurentian Voyageurs on Nov. 18 and defeating the Nipissing Lakers on Nov. 19.
“We came out slow and didn’t have the start that we wanted to,” Ravens head coach Marty Johnston said after the game.
“We’re learning the hard way that you have to play 60 minutes to win . . . we just didn’t have the legs that we normally do,” he said.
Despite the slow start, Ravens defenseman David Weckworth was able to carry the puck wide and beat Laurentian goaltender Joel Vienneau with a well-placed wrist shot early in the first period.
Later in the first, Laurentian forward Dylan Fitze was able to capitalize on a rebound in front of the Ravens’ net and score, tying the game at 1-1.
The Voyageurs were able to keep up the offensive pressure throughout the second period while also shutting down the Ravens’ slumping offence.
After a goaltender interference call gave Laurentian the man advantage, the Voyageurs were able to beat Carleton’s strong penalty kill unit and take the lead.
The score remained 2-1 in favour of Laurentian until late in the third period when Fitze was able to score his second of the game on the Ravens’ empty net.
The Ravens seemed to have a hard time adjusting to the larger Olympic ice surface, according to Johnston.
“This was the second time this year we played on an Olympic-size rink . . . and we struggled,” he said. “We spent too much time on the outside.”
Carleton then travelled to North Bay for a game against the Lakers the following night.
“After the tough loss Friday night we had a players-only meeting to discuss what we need to do to be successful,” Ravens forward Corey Durocher said. “We know we’re not where we want to be in the standings right now but we know as a team we can beat anyone in our division.”
The team meeting appeared to have had a strong effect and the Ravens came out strong in the first period against the Lakers. This strong start was dampened by a total of 18 combined penalty minutes against the Ravens in the first period.
“A couple of the calls I certainly didn’t agree with,” Johnston said regarding the various penalties.
However, Carleton’s penalty kill unit was able to successfully kill all of the penalties and keep the game tied at zero.
“We really took the momentum away from them by killing those penalties,” Johnston said.
The second period was when the scoring opened up for the Ravens. Carleton forward Brent Norris skated up the wing, passing the puck to Durocher, who beat Nipissing goaltender Jeremy Pominville’s blocker.
“I just tried to keep things simple,” Durocher said. “I’ve always been a pass first kind of guy but I’ve tried to shoot the puck more and I’ve had some luck with that.”
Just ten minutes later, Durocher was able to pickup a Nipissing turnover and streak down the boards. He fired a wrist shot from the face-off dot and was able to beat Pominville to make the game 2-0 for the Ravens.
Nipissing forward Guillaume Naud was able to beat Carleton goaltender François Brassard midway through the third period to cut the deficit to one.
Durocher prevented a Lakers comeback when he was able to complete the hat trick with an empty-net goal in the dying seconds of the third period—ending the game 3-1 in favour of the Ravens.
“Saturday night was obviously a fun night for myself. Scoring a hat trick for any player is nice and I was happy to contribute in a win to get us back on track,” Durocher said.
The loss against Laurentian and win against Nipissing puts Carleton’s record at 8-6 this season, slotting them in sixth place in the conference.
So far this season, the Ravens have gone 1-1 in back-to-back games five times this season, which has already equalled last season’s total.
The Ravens will look to break that trend next week, when they play back-to-back home games on Nov. 25-26 against the Concordia Stingers and the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières Patriotes at the Ice House.
