GRAVENHURST — With two regular season games remaining before the playoffs begin, the South Muskoka Shield is only one point behind the first-place Elliot Lake Bobcats in the Greater Metro Jr. A Hockey League standings.
After capturing a 6-1 win over the Algoma Avalanche and a 4-3 victory over the Powassan Dragons in weekend play, the Shield is fighting to win back-to-back league championships, but head coach Dallyn Telford believes South Muskoka won’t finish first.
In a huge upset, the Bradford Rattlers fell to the Innisfil Lakers on the weekend to rank third in the standings. If the Shield wins its two remaining games, the team will finish no lower than second, Telford said.
“If we win both games and Elliot Lake loses one of their remaining two, we will finish first. If we lose one of our remaining two and Bradford wins both of theirs, we will finish third,” he said. “We can only control how we play our last couple of games. All we can control is second place. We could go 35-3 and finish second, which is unreal — 35-3 is miles ahead of first place in other leagues in the country. Will we be disappointed? Yes, but we’d miss it by a single point, and we could conceivably have 73 wins over two regular seasons, which is incredible.”
Telford said the Shield will have to dig deep in its matches against the Powassan Dragons (scheduled for Feb. 16), and Sunday’s make-up game at home against the Deseronto Storm at 4 p.m. — the last regular-season game in the league.
“This year it has been so tight that no matter how we finish we will go through good teams in the playoffs to win it,” he added. “There will be three tough playoff rounds. The only advantage to winning the league championship is home ice advantage through the playoffs, but we don’t have a home rink anyway.”
The Shield is still searching for a venue for its prescheduled playoff games on Feb. 26 and 28 due to anticipated construction at Gravenhurst Centennial Centre.
“If we finish second in the league, we will face Algoma in the first round,” Telford speculated. “If we finish third, we’ll face Brock. Either way we won’t know until Sunday before we play Deseronto.”
The Shield’s weekend wins were just the boost the team needed after splitting their schedule last weekend.
South Muskoka dominated play against the Algoma Avalanche for most of the game in all areas of the rink, jumping to a quick 2-0 lead with goals from Dan Soderberg-Andersson and Matt Gardner.
Between the pipes, Rob Sutherland played well and stopped 26 of the 27 shots he faced, while the Shield put 65 shots on Algoma’s net. Sutherland is on pace to set the league record for goals against average with a 1.84 average currently.
Defenceman Dylon Duivenvoorden added a third marker in the second period after Algoma potted its first goal nearly 10 minutes earlier.
The Shield maintained its solid effort, adding three more goals in the final frame from James Cook, Morgan Didsbury and Dylan Sontag.
“Our power play looked great again, having puck possession for extended periods of time,” said Telford. “We looked controlled and followed our game plan for the majority of the night.”
Sunday’s game against the Powassan Dragons was not the consistent and determined effort Telford wanted, but collecting two points from the 4-3 win proved to be huge as Bradford dropped a 6-3 decision to Innisfil.
Mark Wardell played in net and was good aside from a team letdown early in the second period when Powassan potted three straight goals to lead the game 3-2. Forwards Rob Childs and Sontag netted the only Shield goals in the first period.
“We quickly called a time out, regrouped, and scored on the next shift,” Telford said. “Aside from an excellent first period, we looked lazy and uninterested for most of the game.”
By the end of the second period the game was tied 3-3 and the Shield lost defenceman Cook, who received a fighting major after Chad Meagher was hit from behind. Cook will serve a one-game suspension for the penalty on Tuesday.
Forward Ricky Greenslade scored the winning goal on a breakaway nearly five minutes into the last period, but Telford said the whole team combined in defensive systems to hang onto the lead.
“We’ve been pretty solid in our end all year,” he added. “Our goals against shows that as we are the lowest in the league at 117.”
The Shield is 33-5-0-2 with 68 points, behind Elliot Lake at 33-4-0-3 and 69 points.