After going down in overtime against the St. Lawrence Saints Oct. 6, the Carleton Ravens men’s hockey team finished off the last of their exhibition games with a thumping 6-2 win over the Clarkson Golden Knights the following evening.
“I think this weekend’s games have helped us a lot to prepare for our home opener next week,” veteran Ravens forward Joe Pleckaitis said.
Despite being out-shot by their opponents, the Ravens were able to end their NCAA road trip with a big win at Clarkson University in New York and carry some much needed momentum into their season opener on Oct. 12.
The men scored four unanswered goals in the opening period with goals from Michael Folkes, Shane Bakker and Mitch Porowski.
Nick Duhn and senior forward Andew Glass scored in the second period to take the Ravens to an unassailable 6-0 lead.
Sam Labrecque and Paul Geiger gave the home crowd at Clarkson something to cheer about with goals in the second and third period respectively.
Ravens goaltender Ryan Dube had a stellar outing in goal, turning aside 35 shots as the Golden Knights out-shot the Ravens 37-26 at the final whistle.
It was a different story Oct. 7 at St. Lawrence University, where the Ravens ended up with the short end of the stick after a hard fought encounter.
They led for two-thirds of the game, but Greg Carey’s marker a minute-and-a-half into overtime sealed the win for the home team.
Before that, the Raven’s Ryan Berard got his team ahead just 3:40 into the encounter, batting in a rebound from close range.
It wasn’t until almost half way through the final period that the Saints equalized through a redirected effort from Chris Martin that found its way past Ravens net minder Francis Dupuis.
Five minutes later, Gunnar Hughes got the Saints up by one with a similar tipped-in goal. But it took the Ravens just 19 seconds to come up with a levelling goal, with veteran forward Joe Pleckaitis poking a loose puck in to tie things up at two.
In overtime Carey found himself in the Ravens zone on a two-on-one with Chris Martin. Martin fed Carey in the slot and he buried his shot short-side on Dupuis.
Their New York road trip saw the Ravens end their pre-season with a 2-2-1 record, a result assistant coach Ryan Medel said he was happy with.
“The young players who are coming in impressed us for the most part,” he said.
“Obviously we didn’t always come out with the results we wanted but the effort was there and there is potential here.”
Special teams is an area Pleckaitis and Medel said the team needs to focus on going into the season.
“We had some success in those areas during the exhibition games so we want to continue and work towards getting better in those areas,” Medel said.
The Ravens have yet to name a captain for this season, but Medel did say that the management has been happy with a number of veteran players up till now.
They kick off their regular season on Friday Oct. 12 at home against the Concordia Stingers before heading off to Montreal to take on defending national champions McGill Redmen Oct. 13.
