The powerplay has been a work in progress all season and
against the GLHA Jr Mustangs that work continued but resulted in a pair of
goals as the Waterloo Wolves won 3 to 0 Saturday afternoon.
Although the Wolves had a pair of goals on the powerplay,
first by Tyler O’Hearn from Carson Bernhardt and then by Cullen Derry from Cole
Hunsberger and Connor Palmer, they still didn’t execute as well as the coaches
hoped. At the end of the second period the Wolves had a two-man advantage and
fell victim to some stellar goaltending from the Mustang tender.
Declan Uniac opened the scoring on a nice tip from Palmer
with Matthew Anderson drawing an assist.
One improved area on the power play was the net front battles.
A lot of credit must go to Tate Merritt who had more red skin than white on his
back after the game. Yianni Peppas, Caleb Cumming and Anderson also drew
attention and caused problems out front of the Mustang net.
The Wolves wanted to come out hitting and had several big
hits from Jackson McNichol, Jake Patterson and Ryan Beckner. The coaches talked
about following the style of play that makes them successful and Griffin Beddis
bought in with some great backchecking. Jacob Reid-Brant, Matthew Ball and Cole
Ledgister were all clutch on the forecheck as well.
As always Ben Pendleton was up for the task in net for the Wolves.
Pendleton made some amazing toe saves at the end of the game when the Mustang
pulled their goalie and had a two-man advantage. Pendleton was calm and made
sure the Mustang couldn’t get on the scoreboard.
Up next the Wolves travel to St. Thomas to face the Jr Stars.
The officials call the game a tad differently there so the team will need to
make sure they play an extra clean game and continue to work hard.
Go Wolves!