The Carleton Ravens men’s hockey team rebounded Jan. 17, defeating the Laurentian Voyageurs 5-0 after falling to the McGill Redmen the previous night.
Despite outranking the Redmen in the recent Canadian Interuniversity Sport (CIS) Top 10 rankings, and in the Ontario University Athletics East division standings, the Redmen have been a thorn in the Ravens’ side since the national championship last season.
The Ravens have faced off against the Redmen twice this season and lost both times.
The Ravens came out strong in the first period of the Jan. 16 game, testing top CIS goaltender Jacob Gervais-Chouinard with several point-blank shots in the opening minutes.
But it was the Redmen who struck first, beating Ravens goaltender Patrick Killeen on a cross-ice rebound driven home by Jonathan Bonneau.
Carleton’s inability throughout the game to capitalize on scoring chances cost them again in the third as McGill added another goal, courtesy of an unfortunate bounce onto the stick of a Redmen forward, cementing a 2-0 victory for the Redmen.
“We just couldn’t get our power play going on a couple of the opportunities we had in the game,” Ravens assistant coach Ryan Medel said. “When you play good teams on the road, a lot of the time you’ll need your power play to click, and that’s an area we’ve struggled in lately.”
With the loss fresh in the Ravens’ minds, the team returned home to face Laurentian.
“I thought we came out with a good pace,” Ravens head coach Marty Johnston said, describing the Ravens response to the tough loss the night before.
“In the first period, obviously you hope you get something on the board, but I thought our guys played hard and skated well throughout the night.”
In the second, the Ravens’ hard-fought offensive paid off, as Corey Durocher stripped a Voyageurs defenceman of the puck and opened the scoring with a short-handed breakaway goal.
The Ravens added another two in the period from Joe Pleckaitis and Joey West, heading into the final period with a three-goal lead.
The third was more of the same for the Ravens, as Durocher added his second of the game on the rush, shooting high on goaltender Charlie Millen. Tim Billingsley added the final goal of the game minutes later to secure the 5-0 victory for the Ravens.
“It was a good bounce-back performance after a tough loss to McGill last night,” Durocher said. “I think I’m just using my speed and taking pucks wide, putting a lot of pressure on their defence so that’s opened up a lot of ice for me lately.”
The Ravens will play host to the Nipissing Lakers on Jan. 24, with the goal of improving their man advantage opportunities in the final five games of the regular season.
“Our penalty kill has been very good, but our power play has continued to struggle as it has all year,” Johnston said. “It’s something we are really going to have to sort out before playoffs.”
