There was plenty of noise at the Highbury Canco Arena last Thursday night, October 9, as a crowd of 735 had a Thanksgiving feast courtesy of the visiting Niagara Falls Canucks. While the score after 20 minutes was close, the Flyers rolled in the second period to take a commanding 6-2 lead and finished with an 8-3 victory, then hit the road and lost a close game in Aurora on Friday by a 2-1 score.
On Thursday, the Flyers collected four powerplay goals, two of which came on a third-period major penalty. Flyers goalie Tre Altiman allowed one goal per period, stopping 15 of 18 shots, while the Canucks used two goalies, Linkin Stinson-Kurz who took the loss and Travis Vanderswaag.
“We played a really good game. We executed all the things we talked about during the week,” stated head coach Dale Mitchell. “Our group is getting closer and closer by the day and we are starting to see a real team being formed.”
Things did not start well for Leamington on Thursday, as they put a couple of scoring attempts on Stinson-Kurz before the Canucks’ took a 1-0 lead at 2:27. But the Flyers tabbed two goals in a short span minutes later.
Ashton Darocy hooked a faceoff pass to Griffin Grundner, who gunned a shot from the slot at 7:47. A minute later, Santiago Jimenes and Ethan Walker connected with Brayden Degelas, who rifled a left lane shot that eluded the Canucks’ netminder.
The Flyers’ second period outburst began with Degelas notching his second of the game at 1:49 while open in the slot.
Two minutes later, while on a powerplay, Brayden Lappalainen and Landon Pickersgill slickly set up Tyler Ross’ marker, which was jammed in on the right side.
Seconds shy of the seven-minute mark, Walker and Evan Hjelholt provided the groundwork for Degelas’ hattrick goal, which was a replica of his second tally. Degelas’ goal gave the Flyers a 5-1 lead.
Thirty seconds later, a Canucks’ minor and 10-minute misconduct led to a second Flyers’ powerplay tally as Ross and Brendan Cooke set up Pickersgill’s top of the slot screen shot blast that bounded past Vanderswaag, who had replaced Stinson-Kurz a minute earlier.
At 18:51, the Canucks’ Ben Theron tipped in a powerplay goal to make it a 6-2 contest.
The game’s major incident occurred at 5:18 of the third while the Flyers were pressing in the Canucks’ zone. With the puck to Vanderswaag’s left, Glanville physically hit one of the linesman who fell to the ice and did not get up immediately.
Flyers’ trainer Donnie Mouck attended the fallen official while the other linesman and two refs discussed what they had seen. Their call was a five-minute match penalty for physical abuse of an official. The penalty was served by another Canucks’ player as Glanville was ushered from the ice and the game.
On the ensuing powerplay, Erik Muxlow and Walker’s handiwork gave Darocy a left-side chance, who upped the score to 7-2.
A minute later, Ross and Lappalainen combined with Cooke who drilled a top of the slot cannon, which zipped past Vanderswaag for the final Flyers’ marker.
The Canucks added their last goal at the 17:00 mark to finish all the scoring.
On the road against the Aurora Tigers on Friday night, the Flyers’ offense struggled to score throughout the contest. Much of the game featured the two teams trading scoring attempts with goalies Matthew Humphries (Aurora) and Gannon Hunter (Flyers) stopping nearly everything that came their way. Hunter stopped 33 of 35 and Humphries 40 of 41.
Aurora’s Simon Howard opened the scoring with a shot over Hunter’s glove at 2:21 of the first and the game remained that way until Leamington knotted it on Reid Hayes’ right-lane blast at 9:26 of the third.
The Tigers roared back to take a 2-1 lead 23 seconds later and held on for the win, despite the Flyers lifting Hunter for an extra man in the final minute in an effort to tie it.
The Flyers’ next home game is Thursday, October 16 versus the Buffalo Jr. Sabres at 7:10 pm.
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