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Preds drop first game of round 2 to Renegades

The Niagara Predators ran hot and cold Friday night in their 6-3 loss to the number one ranked North York Renegades in Virgil.

The Niagara Predators ran hot and cold Friday night in their 6-3 loss to the number one ranked North York Renegades in Virgil. 

There were flashes of brilliance in the first and second periods by Niagara, as they headed into the third down just 3-2 against a team they hadn’t beaten in three attempts in the regular season. 

But all too often throughout the game they seemed frozen in their own end, watching the Renegades, in the first of the best-of-five Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League South Division semi-finals, complete pass after pass, the Preds helpless to put a stop to their attack. 

As well, Niagara was short-staffed on the blueline Friday, as Dawson Walker was serving a one-game suspension handed down by the GMHL on Tuesday after their 8-2 win over St. George. And mid-game injuries suffered by Nolan Wyers (leg) and Anthony Tropea (neck) limited their time and effectiveness on the ice at key points. 

In the end, the Renegades drew first blood in round two of the Russell Cup playoffs and Niagara squandered the opportunity to take a 1-0 lead in the series to North York Saturday night.

North York’s Daniel Johnson started the scoring less than three minutes into the game. With two Preds trying to come up with the puck behind their net, Johnson was left alone in front of goalie Ryan Santini. North York’s Ryan Fritz came up with it and fed a pass to Johnson, who beat Santini on the far side. 

The netminder was forced to make a number of stops over the next 11 minutes as the Renegades use of speedy spread passes kept the Preds pinned in their own zone for much of the period. 

But Anthony Tropea stole the puck at the Preds blueline and skated into the North York zone with three Renegades in pursuit. Tropea was too fast for them to catch up, and he knocked it past Renegades goalie Nick Lewicky to tie it up with 4:15 remaining in the period.

Just 18 seconds later, though, the play was back in the Predators’ zone, and their sharp passing had Niagara on the run again. Vadim Karpenko, with Niagara’s Cole Ellis and Tyler Gearing closing in on him, swept a wrist shot past Santini and into the net. 

It was up to Tropea again to provide a spark. Cameron Savoie won a faceoff in the Preds’ end and Declan Fogarty was able to take possession of the puck at the blueline. Fogarty skated toward the North York net and,on his way to being taken down by a defender, dropped the puck off to Tropea, who crossed in front of Lewicky and tied it up with 25 seconds left. 

Though they didn’t score themselves and gave up a goal to North York’s Darius Mani, the second period was the best 20 minutes of the night for Niagara. They were able to break up the Renegades’ passing attempts more often and actually moved the puck around inside the North York blueline a few times that period. 

But the third was a different story. Fogarty was assessed a penalty for elbowing after the final second period whistle. As a result, the Renegades started the period with a power play. They capitalized on the man advantage in the first minute, as Darius Mani scored what turned out to be the winning goal for North York.

Fogarty gave Niagara some hope about four minutes later when he tipped in an attempt by linemate Savioe to close the gap to 4-3 with about 15 minutes left to go. 

The rest of the way, though, all of the time spent chasing the puck in their own zone seemed to catch up to a tired Predators squad. Johnson scored his second for the Renegades near the midpoint of the period and Joseph Lionti added the exclamation point at 18:49.

“I think we ran out of gas in the third period,” Predators’ head coach Kevin Taylor said after the game. “There were some key injuries that happened tonight. Some guys didn’t bring their  A-games. Playing against this team, you have to be on your A-plus-game. If you don’t bring it, you’re not going to win.”

On a positive note, they held the league’s regular season scoring leader Ryan Fritz to only three assists. But as Taylor noted all season, if there’s one thing that North York has more than any other team in the league, it’s depth.

“They have two lines that just dominate,” he said. “You can’t make mistakes against them. They have a good team. They’re on the ice a lot, and you can tell.”

At the same time, the Renegades made some mistakes of their own. Both of Tropea’s two first period goals were the end results of North York errors. 

“We exposed some of their weaknesses,” agreed Taylor. “It’s something that we can go by (Saturday) and just try and work to capitalize on more of the chances that we can get.”

Games two and three go Saturday and Sunday evenings at the Canlan Ice Sports Centre in North York. Taylor says it’s important that the team heads into both of those games with the confidence of knowing that they kept it close against a team that went 36-6-0 in the regular season, and swept eighth place Streetsville in the first round of the playoffs.

“Nobody expects us to win the series,” he says. “We don’t have anything to lose. I’m trying to tell the guys to just go out there and do their job. If you do your job and the guy beside you does his job, you don’t have to worry about anything else. That’s what it comes down to, just do your job and work hard. We did that for a while tonight.”

If the Predators can win one this weekend in North York, the two teams will return to the Meridian Credit Union Arena Friday, March 10.  

 

 




Mike Balsom

About the Author: Mike Balsom

With a background in radio and television, Mike Balsom has been covering news and events across the Niagara Region for more than 35 years
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