By Spencer Seymour
Although the team is still working on consistently executing their gameplan at a high level, the St. Marys Lincolns have gotten nothing but good results to start this season, most recently with wins in back-to-back games against Sarnia and Elmira.
The Lincolns began their third consecutive slate of two games in as many days on Oct. 10 with a visit to the Legionnaires in Sarnia, a game the Lincs won by a final score of 4-1. After starting the game shorthanded due to a warmup-violation penalty and killing off the Sarnia man advantage, St. Marys opened the scoring just 29 seconds into five-on-five play when Julian Stubgen fired a long-range shot that snuck by Legionnaires netminder Logan Phillips for Stubgen’s first of the season. Jacob McLellan and Ryder Livermore assisted on Stubgen’s goal.
The Lincs’ incredible shutout streak ended at the 2:22 mark of the second period when Carter Fogarty netted his fourth of the season. The goal snapped a stretch of 223 minutes and 38 seconds of consecutive gameplay during which the Lincolns didn’t allow a goal. According to the GOJHL record book, the almost four full games worth of time set an all-time Lincs’ record for the longest stretch of time without being scored on.
Just 70 seconds later, however, Blake Elzinga responded with his third of the year to restore the Lincolns’ one-goal lead.
A parade to the penalty box by the Legionnaires then allowed St. Marys to score a pair of powerplay goals, the first of which came off the stick of Noah VandenBrink, extending the Lincs’ lead to two and giving VandenBrink his 50th career GOJHL goal.
One minute and 52 seconds later, McLellan capped off a three-point night by finishing off a dizzying passing play by the Lincolns’ powerplay to make it 4-1 for St. Marys. Nico Armellin secured the win and made 21 saves in net.
Head coach Jeff Bradley acknowledged the game didn’t meet the team’s high standards for how they want to execute their gameplan, but they still found a way to get what they went to the Pat Stapleton Arena for.
“To be honest, I didn’t think it was our best performance, but we still found a way to get the two points and, in the end, that’s what matters,” Bradley told the Independent. “Defensively, we played fine. Our special teams were good. I just think there were times we weren’t as sharp as we could have been, but thankfully, we were sharp enough to get the win.”
Bradley did take in one major positive from the game; the highly driven and competitive trio of Chase McDougall, Dylan Searles and Tanner Ducharme.
“I thought the line of Chase, Dylan and Tanner was really good. Those guys just worked incredibly hard all game. Sometimes, it can be tough for guys to get up for a game like that. It’s a Thursday night bus trip with exams and schoolwork going on at the same time, but that line treated it like any other game. They played with urgency and their work ethic was fantastic.”
Ducharme in particular was a standout for the Lincolns as, when Stubgen and Ty Moffatt were ejected for fighting, Ducharme reverted back to playing on the blueline.
“Tanner was really good back there. He did a really good job filling a hole when we needed him to. He had only been a forward for a relatively short amount of time before coming to us, so we knew Tanner had that in the bag and we knew he was a good defenceman for much of his triple-A career. It’s great having that type of versatility and support for our team.”
Wild start leads Lincs to ninth straight win
The Lincolns’ clash against the Elmira Sugar Kings on Oct. 11 was one that everyone needed to see from the very first moment, with the first goal coming just 100 seconds into the first period, and it only got nuttier from there.
Ryan Cornfield’s icebreaker at the 1:40 mark of the first, a one-time tap-in set up by VandenBrink, extended the Kitchener, Ont. native’s point streak to five games. Cornfield also has goals in three of his last four games.
In his first game since being returned to the Sugar Kings from the OHL’s London Knights, Brendan Gerber wasted little time in picking up right where he left off in his 27-goal rookie season last year, tying the game just under two minutes after the Lincs went up 1-0.
Then, the “Perfect Complement” line got on the ice for the Lincolns. In a span of two minutes and 36 seconds, Luca Spagnolo, Jaden Lee and Owen Voortman completely upended the whole game and tilted the contest firmly in the Lincs’ favour.
After Gerber went to the box for interference, Spagnolo found a loose puck in front of the net and buried his seventh goal of the season and 100th career GOJHL point. A mere 68 seconds later, it was Voortman’s turn to find the back of the net, and he scored on a breakaway facilitated through a strong defensive play by Lee.
With a pair of assists already, Lee buried a backdoor one-timer on another St. Marys powerplay, chasing goaltender Ethan Hartwick from the net and capping off a crazy stretch of just over two-and-a-half minutes in which the Lincolns scored three times. However, it also propelled Lee to join his lifelong best friend, Spagnolo, in hitting 100 points in his GOJHL career, having entered the game sitting at 97.
The Lincolns didn’t get out of the first period with their three-goal lead intact, with Luke Della Croce banging home a rebound on an Elmira powerplay with 36 seconds left in the opening frame. Della Croce’s tally ended an impressive shorthanded streak for the Lincolns, who had killed off 25 consecutive penalties successfully before the goal.
It took just 21 ticks off the clock in the second period for that three-goal deficit to be restored, however, with Chase MacQueen-Spence potting yet another powerplay goal for the Lincolns. While Spagnolo, Lee and Voortman were obvious stars of the game, coach Bradley made mention of MacQueen-Spence and VandenBrink for their strong attention to detail all over the ice.
“Chase and Noah were outstanding,” said Bradley. “They had amazing games, not just offensively but just in their all-around play and the details in their games. They were the ultimate team-first guys, doing anything and everything to push the team forward. Those are two guys that looked at that game and badly wanted to win. They were incredible on-ice leaders and when you’re a young player, seeing what they did, it’s easy to follow.”
The Lincolns went three-for-seven with the powerplay and, heading into their game in Stratford on Oct. 16, had at least one powerplay goal in every game so far this season. Bradley credited assistant coach Brandon Greenside for his ability to connect with the team’s powerplay units and get them consistently firing on all cylinders.
“Brandon has done an amazing job with the powerplay and it’s good to see those numbers continue to grow. Brandon takes a very similar approach to the way our Mike Herman did the penalty kill last year. He has a lot of meetings, sends out a lot of video and makes sure the guys are prepared. Brandon was a pro hockey player, so when he’s looking at the video and going over the X’s and O’s, he’s able to teach guys different reads of different plays more than I can and that has been a big part of why our powerplay has been doing so well to start the year.”
Almost exactly three minutes after MacQueen-Spence’s goal, Spagnolo potted his second of the night. Luke Schofield got the lone goal of the third period to bring the Sugar Kings within three, but Colby Booth-Housego held the fort with 38 saves on the night to earn the win in goal.
According to Bradley, the game was important to the team given the quality of their opponent and Elmira being one of their newest Western Conference foes.
“This was a big test for us. We’ve got several big tests over the span of two weeks and the first of those was Elmira. We’ve got two games against Stratford next on our schedule and then we’ve got Kitchener-Waterloo the following week. Those are all games we are especially looking forward to because we get to see where we stack up against some of the high-end teams who moved into our conference and who we didn’t see much of last year.”
For the third straight week, regardless of the final score, the Lincolns played a more complete game against the stronger of their two opponents in their back-to-back, continuing a trend the bench boss feels illustrates the competitive character of his group.
“I think it just reaffirmed that we have a bunch of gamers on our team. We have guys who have played in some big moments and some big games for us, and when it's their time to make an impact and when they need to step up, they certainly can do it. Elmira is a very good team and offensive team. Obviously, they wanted to win this game and they did everything they could to do that. Seeing our guys be able to handle what Elmira threw at us and get the win while playing a really good game is very enjoyable to watch.
“Our guys take great pride in playing the right way,” Bradley continued. “They understand that, right now, we have a target on our backs being undefeated. Because of that, we're going to get everybody's best every single night. When we’ve played these really good teams, we’ve been prepared for their best and we’ve handled it well, which is really good to see.”
The Lincolns’ blemish-free nine-win start to the season also makes history for the franchise as the team’s previous documented record for the longest winning streak to start a season was four games. Not only are the Lincolns the only remaining undefeated team in the GOJHL, but they also are the only team to have still allowed single-digit goals against, with just nine goals allowed in as many games. Meanwhile, St. Marys has scored the second-most goals in the league as of the Independent’s press time.
The Lincs next defend their unbeaten record in a home-and-home series against their much-anticipated new conference rival, the Stratford Warriors, on Oct. 16 and Oct. 18.
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