Another weekend with win/loss split for Preds

The Niagara Predators have developed a strange habit of alternating gritty, aggressive offensive performances with games in which they look like they left their fire at home.

Last Friday night, the seventh-place Preds gained two points on the sixth-place Northumberland Stars with a hard-fought 5-2 victory in front of a home crowd at Virgil’s Meridian Credit Union Arena.

They followed that up with a humiliating 10-1 loss in North York Saturday. 

Granted, the results from Friday’s slugfest, during which close to 70 minutes in penalties were handed out in the second period alone, resulted in four Predators and head coach Kevin Taylor being handed suspensions, leaving Niagara with only 13 skaters for Saturday. 

Northumberland’s Pavel Smirnov opened the scoring Friday, and Noah Wyers responded for Niagara with a tying goal 90 seconds later. Cameron Savoie continued his hot scoring streak when he notched his fifth goal in four games with two seconds remaining in a power play. 

The penalties got started in the second period when the Stars’ Lorenzzo Sullivan was called for slashing 26 seconds in. The first fight happened six minutes later, and more were to come, as the Stars seemed thrown off by a physical style of play they weren’t expecting from Niagara.

A fight between Northumberland’s Justice Scheltgen and Tyler Gearing of Niagara resulted in both players being tossed by the referees. Four more Stars were turfed that period, and the Predators’ Cole Ellis got the boot when he jumped over the boards and onto the ice to join in the fray as his brother Riley was prone on the ice and getting pummelled.  

Taylor’s failure to stop Ellis from leaving the bench caused his ejection. He began serving a requisite three-game suspension during Saturday’s road game. 

Somehow during all the melees the Predators were able to jump to a 4-1 lead, with a power play goal by Declan Fogarty and another marker by Wyers. The Stars also got on the scoreboard that period, with a shorthanded goal by Nathan Ketcheson, who later was disqualified from the game for fighting with Riley Ellis.

Niagara got another insurance marker in the third on a great play by Reese Bisci, showing the deft scoring touch he had last season when he collected 13 goals and 19 assists in 32 games for the Preds. 

More fights took place in the third, with more players thrown out of the game. And the refs called the game off with 69 seconds remaining, when the entire Stars bench emptied onto the ice. Then, one of the Stars left the ice in an attempt to attack a vocal Predators fan who was unhappy about the bench-clearing.

“This team pushes people around,” Taylor said of the Stars. “I told my guys to go out and play hard and win. I didn’t tell them to fight. We set the message right away with our first shift, when we started the Ellis brothers and Gearing. Those guys love laying the body. That’s all I told them to do.”

Taylor lamented the inability of his squad to control their emotions throughout the game. He felt it put a mark on one of their best-played games of the season.

Despite the suspensions, it was a hard-fought win for the Predators. And it puts them only a point behind Northumberland in the Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League’s South Division, with five games on hand.

It was a completely different story Saturday against the North York Renegades. The Ellis brothers, Nick Savoie and Tyler Gearing were all serving their suspensions from the previous night. The Predators’ leading scorer, Jaroslav Dohnal, was held from the game with a possible concussion from Friday, and Michael Santini, who made his Niagara debut Friday, had other commitments. 

Assistant coach Connor Shipton ran the bench in place of the suspended Taylor. With a short lineup, the team put forth a lacklustre performance, giving up four goals in the first period and three each in the second and third. Ryan Fritz led the way for the Renegades with three goals and two assists. The lone Preds goal came in the third off the stick of Leo Savin.

Saturday’s game was not originally on the schedule. In fact, the Predators weren’t asked to play this game, originally scheduled for February, until Wednesday. 

Like the previous night, discipline and composure may have been an issue Saturday. 

“We got away from our game plan,” Shipton told The Local. “We started puck-watching and took some stupid penalties. Every single penalty was stupid. And our defensive zone play was very bad.”

Indeed, at least three of the North York goals came via two-on-one or three-on-onesituations, where Niagara was caught unprepared for the Renegades’ rush.

Despite the hot and cold weekend, Shipton says it’s all starting to come together for the Preds. 

“We had a really tough schedule out of the gate, when we were still piecing the roster together,” Shipton explained. “We have a lot of youth and inexperience. A lot of these guys still need to learn what junior hockey is all about.”

The 7-9-3 Predators are in action Wednesday, Dec. 7 at 8 p.m. in Bradford against the 18-4-0 Bulls, who are tied for second place in the South Division with the Durham Roadrunners. 

Their next home game is Friday night versus the Windsor Aces. Game time is 7:30 p.m.

November player of the month

Nick Savoie was chosen by his teammates as the Predators Player of the Month for November. The 18-year-old rookie defenceman from St. Catharines has shown remarkable development over the first two months of the season. He received a gift certificate donated from Italian Pizza and Subs. 

GMHL College Showcase coming to Niagara Falls

The annual college showcase is scheduled for next Tuesday and Wednesday, Dec. 13 and 14, at the Gale Centre in Niagara Falls. Sixteen teams will be playing two games each between the two days on three of the four ice pads there. 

The showcase will bring together teams from the Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League’s North and South Divisions to play against each other, something that doesn’t usually happen during the regular season. 

“In addition, each game played will count in the regular season team standings,” explained GMHL Commissioner Ken Girard in a press release. “With this crossover format and with points at stake in every game, it guarantees teams will be motivated to play hard, competitive hockey.”

Predators owner Robert Turnbull says the allure of Niagara Falls makes the showcase a popular event. It was held a few years ago in the Honeymoon City. The GMHL hopes to make Niagara Falls the permanent home for this annual tournament.

GMHL President Bob Russell added, “We expect many scouts and recruiters to be in attendance to scout the games with so many teams all playing in one location. It promises to be two days of exciting and intense hockey.”

The Predators play the 6-13-3 South Muskoka Shield Tuesday at 10:30 a.m., and the 8-14-0 West Nipissing Lynx Wednesday at 11:30 a.m. Admission to all games is free.