It was a chippy game right from the puck drop and the
Waterloo Wolves were ready and willing to compete all game winning 5 to 3 over
the Stratford Warriors.
The Wolves made the game harder on themselves than they
needed to by committing several costly penalties. All the Warrior’s goals were collected
with the man advantage and gifted by the Wolves. Credit the Warriors for their puck movement
with the man advantage.
That said, the Wolves had plenty of chances with the man
advantage as well but took penalties with the man advantage to ruin some opportunities.
The team still managed to get a pair of goals on the power play to make three
consecutive games with more than one goal scored on special teams.
Jacob Reid Brant appeared to have the puck on a string at
times in the game and recorded a hattrick with a pair of unassisted goals and
his third goal from Ryan Beckner. The powerplay goals were by Connor Palmer
from Tyler O’Hearn and Tate Merritt from Anderson and O’Hearn.
The Wolves reunited the line of Declan Uniac, Matthew Ball
and Cole Hunsberger and the line looked great together ringing a couple shots
of the iron and cycling down low. Cole Ledgister was between Griffin Beddis and
Caleb Cumming and they were a force as well, especially on the forecheck.
During the 5 on 5 play the Wolves did a fantastic job
controlling the play and a lot of that was from the stellar work from the
defenders. Carson Bernhardt continues to show the ability to slow the game and
control play. Cullen Derry used his tremendous skating ability to move the
pucks out of harm’s way. Both Jackson McNichol and Yianni Peppas delivered bone
crushing hits for the team.
It was a great response to the St. Thomas game where the Wolves
played less then stellar and a good ramp up to the next few games where the Wolves
will face some tough teams including the league leading Hamilton Huskies. The
team will need to continue to work hard but also do better at staying out of
the box.
Go Wolves!