The Carleton Ravens lost two playoff games against the University of Montreal Carabins in the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec (RSEQ) bronze medal playoffs last weekend, ending their season.
While every RSEQ team made the playoffs this year under a new structure, Carleton struggled through the season and ended the year on a 12-game losing skid. An initial playoff series which determined seeding against the last-place Bishop’s Gaiters was a surprising disappointment, as they swept the Ravens.
The loss meant Carleton was seeded against Montreal, a strong team, in the series that determined who would play for the bronze medal.
Carleton and Montreal locked heads in a tight opening game that saw Montreal win by just one goal. Head coach Pierre Alain shuffled his bench compared to the games against Bishop’s, giving ice time to players like defender Rhys Cole-Ashbury for the first time in months.
The Ravens went down early, again, continuing their struggles in the early minutes. Cole-Ashbury turned over the puck in her own end as she was skating out of the defensive zone. Forward Noémie Chiasson picked Cole-Ashbury’s pocket and slid the puck to forward Mylene Lefebvre, who tucked it around the pads of goalie Marie-Ève Côté.
Côté had another rock-solid game where she stopped nearly everything thrown at her—significantly more than the defence should have allowed. Maude Trévisan was equally solid in the Montreal net, stopping all 20 shots against. The Carabins took the series lead with a 1-0 win.
The two teams travelled to Carleton for a second game on Sunday afternoon. In what would turn out to be the final game of the year, the Ravens came out with a passion and fire in their play that had been missing all year. They amassed 17 shots to Montreal’s 16 through two periods of play.
Coté and Aube Racine played exceptionally well in both nets, so no skaters were able to score. Montreal’s chances seemed to be more dangerous as the game went on, but Côté continued to stand tall.
Then, in the third period, the Carabins shifted into a gear Carleton did not have. They outshot the Ravens 7-3 and converted on one of them. When the goal went in, the heads on the Carleton bench fell as they have every time the team has fallen behind this year.
The Ravens lucked out with multiple power plays late in the game, even pulling Côté for a six-on-four advantage. However, it didn’t yield results and Montreal scored an empty-net goal to end Carleton’s season.
After the game, Alain had few words for his team’s performance.
“The puck didn’t cross the goal line behind the goalie,” Alain said. “We scored one goal in four games in the playoffs, so how can you win?”
The Ravens have now finished out of the top four spots in RSEQ for eight consecutive seasons. There were only five teams in the league until a sixth joined this season. The team has also failed to win more than four games in a season in that stretch, including all seven seasons Alain has coached.
How do the Ravens turn this around?
“We’re working hard on recruiting … also developing skills,” Alain said.
Most players will return next year in addition to a class of new rookies. After a summer of training, the Ravens will be looking to come back and compete in the 2022-23 season.
Featured image by Spencer Colby.
