First road trip behind them, Preds still learning to win

After a tough 5-3 loss at home Friday night to the St. George Ravens, the Niagara Predators finally took their first road trip of the season.

Though the bus ride there and back was fun, the Preds came home with their third straight Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League loss, 3-1 to the Durham
Roadrunners. 

“Friday was frustrating,” head coach Kevin Taylor tells The Local. “These guys have to learn how to win. Good teams find a way to win even when they’re not playing well. We haven’t found that guy who will step up and say ‘I’ve got this, boys.’ Is that player on this team? I don’t know yet, but if he is, I have to find him.”

Taylor insists his Predators outplayed the Ravens Friday night in a game that went back and forth scoring-wise in the first period, resulting in a 2-2 tie after 20 minutes. But St. George tallied twice in the second, only 40 seconds between goals. 

Niagara forward Nicholas Nicoletti was tripped a mere 20 seconds after the Ravens went up 4-2. He tucked his penalty shot between Ravens’ goalie Nikolay Ershov’s legs to narrow the gap. But despite outshooting St. George 16-8 in the third period, the Preds were unable to bounce back.

“We dominated them,” Taylor says of the St. George game. “We had the puck at least 60 per cent of the time. We just couldn’t put it into the net.”

Having lost against the Roadrunners 3-2 just eight days earlier, Taylor was hoping to get some revenge with their first visit to the Del Park Homes Centre in Oshawa. 

“I thought we played okay in the first period,” says Taylor, though the Preds gave up a goal just 1:09 after the opening faceoff. “I think we outplayed them in the second, and in the third we dominated them. There was about 12 minutes left in the third period and the ice was still wet in our own end.”

Ethan Culp got the lone Predators goal in the second period after taking a pass from teammate Shane Kaplan, who was playing against his older brother Jackson, a forward on the Roadrunners. 

Shane comes to the Predators from the Greater Toronto Hockey League’s AA York Mills Hockey Club, while Jackson played last year for the Georgina Ice of the Provincial Junior Hockey League.

“It was really cool for my parents and my grandparents to see us playing in the same game,” says Shane, a first-year sport management student at Brock University. “It was the first time we played against each other.”

The 18-year-old says there was no brotherly chirping during the game, though he did give 21-year-old Jackson, who is studying business at Toronto Metropolitan University, a nice, clean hit at one point.

Jackson picked up an assist in the game on the opening goal.  

Since he came down to Niagara to attend Brock, Shane claims that the Predators were an obvious choice for him. 

“They’re a great organization,” he tells The Local. “A great team. I love it here. I just want to keep playing as long as I can at the highest level that I can. I’m just taking it one year at a time.”

With the Roadrunners up 2-1 just past the midway point of the second period Saturday, Niagara-on-the-Lake native Josh Frena took a tripping penalty that resulted in Durham’s insurance goal. 

“It was my first penalty,” Frena says. “I went to take the body, and I just got stuck behind his back leg. I got called for the knee. I was kind of upset. After they went up 3-1 it made it harder to get back into it. I was mad at myself for that.”

Frena, for one, is happy to have experienced his first road trip with his teammates after two previous away games were cancelled. 

“It was a lot of fun on the bus,” he confirms. “Just messing around, having fun, talking about sports and other things, having a laugh. It wasn’t too serious on the way up. And the post game chicken burgers were great.”

“I forgot to warm them up,” Taylor says of the food. “I got sidetracked and forgot to turn it on. But they still enjoyed them. I think they are all starting to see how much work goes into this team. It was nice seeing how appreciative they were of everything.”

Heading into this week’s practice sessions Taylor was planning to get back to basics.

“Greg (Wilson, assistant coach) and I think we have to get away from all the motivational stuff and get back to the X’s and O’s,” Taylor says. “Centre drive, take the puck to the middle. We’re struggling with guys trying to do too much out there. I’m a firm believer that you can’t run until you can walk, you can’t walk until you can stand, you can’t stand until you can crawl.”

Frena has a similar opinion when asked how he and his teammates might be able to get back into the win column this coming weekend. 

“We have a lot of skill on this team,” Frena states. “Obviously we have to work a lot harder to get the puck out there. We have to make the easy passes, keep it simple, stay away from the stretch passes and stop trying to get through three guys. We have to keep our heads up and stick to our strengths.”

After a rare Friday night without a home game, the Predators will try to keep it simple at the Tottenham Community and Fitness Centre Saturday night when they take on the Railers, to whom they fell 5-3 in their season and home opener on Sept. 15. 

Their next home game at Virgil’s Meridian Credit Union Arena is Friday, Oct. 27, their first time meeting the currently 2-4-0 Northumberland Stars.