The Carleton Ravens men’s hockey team gave up a late game goal Jan. 14 on their second road trip of the new year, losing to the Ryerson Rams after snapping a five-game losing streak at Nipissing the previous night.
The Ravens lost to the Rams 3-2 fresh off a 5-4 win over the Nipissing Lakers. With the weekend’s results, Carleton only has one win in its last seven games, with a 1-4-2 record.
Winless in their last five games, going into the Jan. 13 game against a strong Nipissing team wasn’t an easy prospect, according to Ravens head coach Marty Johnston.
“We were all a little bit nervous,” Johnston said. “We’d certainly not gotten the results that we’d wanted to have so far, but the guys came out with a lot of jump and played really well.”
After going down two goals in the first frame against Nipissing, the Ravens came out and scored four unanswered goals in the second period. Jeff Hayes, Joe Pleckaitis, and Shane Bakker all scored while Carleton was shorthanded, with an even strength addition from Andrew Self.
Nipissing opened the third period scoring with a goal, but newcomer Andrew Glass added insurance for the Ravens. Nipissing added a meaningless goal with 10 seconds left to play, as Carleton came out with the victory.
Despite handily out-shooting Ryerson the next night, a few unlucky plays and bad bounces squandered the Ravens’ chances of building some momentum in the win column.
“Again, we were really happy with the effort that we had [against Ryerson],” Johnston said. “We had a couple of mistakes that resulted in them putting two pucks into an empty net just off turnovers and communication. Of the three goals they scored, only one was really earned, which is always frustrating.”
Although the Ravens killed off 13 of 15 penalties over the weekend, they didn’t score on any of their nine power plays, which concerned Johnston.
“I think our power play has been a problem all year,” Johnston said. “Our penalty kill did a good job, but our power play really has to step up and be a lot better for us to have any chance this season.”
Carleton accumulated 70 penalty minutes in two games this weekend, bringing their total to 700 this season — the most in the OUA. They have 119 more penalty minutes than their rivals the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, who are second in penalty minutes behind Carleton with 581.
“I found in the second half since we’ve been back we’ve been pretty good with our discipline,” Johnston said. “I mean there were a couple calls where we took penalties in the wrong areas of the ice, but overall I thought the guys competed hard.”
The Ravens, who are currently tied for fourth place in the Ontario University Athletics East division, continue the second half of their season Jan. 20 as they look to upset the first-place McGill Redmen.
