Whitecourt Wolverines vs Lloydminster Bobcats Fri Oct. 4, 2019
Written by: Tyler Campbell
One of the Bobcats best efforts of the season went unrewarded on Friday night as the Whitecourt Wolverines took a hard fought battle by a final score of 1-0.
After a slow start to the game, action really picked up near the end of the 1st period as the Bobcats and Wolverines had glorious chances to head to the intermission with a 1-0 lead, but as was the case all night long, Josh Dias and Vincent Duplessis were there to shut the door. The game remained scoreless until the 13:09 mark of the 2nd period as on the power play, Wolverines captain Adam Sandstrom let a quick wrist shot goal that appeared to go off a Bobcat stick and passed Dias for a 1-0 Wolverines lead, and would remain that way after 40 minutes. In the 3rd, the Wolverines came on strong and started to pull away on the shot clock. But Josh Dias was doing everything he could to keep the Cats in it, turning away all 13 Wolverine shots in the 3rd. The Bobcats put on a hard push in the dying minutes of the 3rd, but were unable to solve Vincent Duplessis as he stopped all 35 Bobcat shots and the Wolverines pulled out the victory.
Very disappointing evening because the Bobcats did everything right. Scoring chances were even, they did a terrific job defending keeping guys in front of them and everything to the outside. They just couldn?t get the bounce that they were looking for. Alex Danis rang one off the cross bar on a great individual effort midway through the 3rd. Kris Bladen a few times in the game took the puck strong to the net which created high quality chances, but the puck just could not find the back of the net.
Despite the disappointment of what the final result was, it was an effort that the Bobcats could and should be proud of and be able to build off it. Head coach Nigel Dube echoed that sentiment after the game. ?I thought our guys did a lot of good things. We talk about growth as a youthful group, we took a step in the right direction which is a hard pill to swallow when it doesn?t show on the score clock. We stayed out of the penalty box, we did good things, and just being able to find one to break the seal would be a big part for our group and I like what can happen moving forward. But where we?re at in the season, if you take a look at where we?re at from the first game at home against Sherwood Park, we?ve taken big strides.? Bobcats get no time to rest as the Bonnyville Pontiacs come to town tonight for the Cats third game in four nights. The first of those three was also against the Pontiacs on Wednesday night where the Cats dropped a 4-0 decision. Dube believes that if they can execute, good things will start to happen. ?When we execute what we?re trying to do systematically, we can shut a lot of things down. We kept them to four shots 12 minutes into the 2nd (on Wednesday), again Danis rang one off the post and at that point it would have been a 1-1 game, and instead they go down the other end and make it 2-0. We just have to match the effort that we had tonight, we?ll inject some new legs into the lineup, and that should give us a bit of a spark.?
The Pontiacs come into the Civic Centre tonight playing great hockey with a 6-1-1 mark through 8 games and have been off since downing the Bobcats on Wednesday night, but it?s a very safe bet that the Bobcats will be ready to go for this one. They?ll be not only looking to avenge the loss in Bonnyville on Wednesday, but also looking to pick up their first home win of the season. Puck drop at the Civic Centre is 7:30, but if you can?t make it down for the game, Shane Tomayer and myself will have the call on Hockey TV and also on MixLR.