Predators on the ropes Friday night against Roadrunners

After losing game one of their best-of-three Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League quarter-final series against the Durham Roadrunners 4-1 Monday, the Niagara Predators face elimination in front of a home crowd this weekend. 

If the Preds have any hope of extending their Russell Cup playoff run, they are going to have to rediscover their scoring touch this Friday night in Virgil. Goals have been hard to come by over their last five games, though, as Niagara has only scored four times in regulation and been shut out twice in that 1-4 stretch. 

Head coach Kevin Taylor admits the lack of goal-scoring from his squad lately is perplexing. 

“We’re not scoring goals right now, and that’s really hurting us,” says Taylor. “I can’t figure out what’s happening. We’re shooting high, shooting to score, and not shooting instead to make plays.”

The Roadrunners scored 90 seconds into the first period Monday night when Preds goalie Zane Clausen stopped a shot from the outside from Matthew Balke only to watch as the rebound was tucked into the Niagara net by Durham’s Joshua Risk. 

The Predators outshot the Roadrunners for the rest of that period, but Durham goaltender Gian-Marco Peyer continuously came up with big saves. 

The Preds went down 2-0 in the second when a couple of penalty calls by the referees seemed to take the wind out of their sails.

Niagara’s Tyler Gearing was handed a five-minute major for boarding when he took Durham’s Henrik Wiklund into the boards behind the Roadrunners’ net. Though the Preds successfully killed that penalty, the Roadrunners scored just 12 seconds after it expired when Bryant Trowsse capitalized on a rebound off linemate Risk’s shot on Clausen. 

“I don’t understand how he got that five-minute boarding call,” Taylor says. “Gearing was just finishing his check when (Wiklund) turned to go back. I can see them calling a two-minute penalty for charging, but there’s no way that’s a five-minute penalty. That changed the game in my opinion.”

Just 37 seconds later Preds forward Georgy Kholmovsky had a breakaway opportunity on Peyer when he was tripped by Durham’s Tayvon Spencer. Even Durham’s play-by-play announcer couldn’t understand why Kholmovsky wasn’t awarded a penalty shot on the infraction. The Preds failed to score during their ensuing two-minute power play.

Zach Burns put the Roadrunners up 3-0 in the third before the Preds finally got on the scoreboard with less than four minutes remaining, when Kholmovsky centred the puck to Shane Kaplan, who was able to bury it past Peyer to make it 3-1. 

Durham added an empty-netter with just over two minutes remaining to wrap up the win for the Roadrunners. 

“It was a disappointing loss,” head coach Kevin Taylor says of the playoff loss. “We outplayed, outshot, outhit and outchecked them. I was happy with the way they played, and I thought we deserved better.”

The Preds closed out their regular season three days before that, losing 3-0 to the first-place North York Renegades, their second shutout loss in two home games. Niagara was outshot in that game 72-16, making it a marvel that it was as close as it was. The team finished in sixth place in the South Division with a 17-21-4 record. 

Playing the odds, Taylor feels the Predators are due for a big-scoring game and it has to come this Friday at home. 

“We’re positive about how we played Monday,” he says, “as much as you can be positive about a loss. We’re going to bounce back and force a game three. There’s no way we can stay in this scoring slump like this. We have to break out, and that’s what it comes down to right now.”

“Everyone is playing well right now,” Taylor added. “We hit a crossbar, we hit the butt of a stick, those shots should be going in and they’re just not right now. We have to control the rebounds in front of our net and not give them the opportunities, and we have to control our shots to get those dirty goals we need.” 

Game time Friday night is 7:30 p.m. at the Meridian Credit Union Arena.