The Oakville Blades will only place once this weekend: after Friday night's loss to the Brantford 99ers at home, tonight's Dec. 18, 2021 home game against the Milton Menace has been cancelled "due to a public health issue" with the Milton team.
While more details of tonight's cancellation are expected in the coming days, let's start with the Blades' noble effort on Friday to fend off the 99ers.
Dec. 17, 2021. Brantford 99ers @ Oakville Blades
After last week's very successful games, the Blades headed into their final homestand of 2021 before their holiday break. The first scheduled game was against their west division rivals: the Brantford 99ers, who have had much success against the blades this season.
The puck drops and the Blades get out to a sluggish start. An Oakville penalty put Brantford on the powerplay and Brantford capitalized with a goal by Brendan Anderson assisted by Adrian Rebelo giving the 99ers a 1-0 lead.
(Bad starts have been a theme for the Blades this season, especially against Brantford and once again they let in an early goal.)
Brantford scored again in the first with a goal by Josh Sordo assisted by Adrian Rebelo and Lucas Thompson making the score 2-0 for the 99ers. The first period ended and a very angry Oakville coaching staff headed into the locker room to try and re-ignite their team.
The second period starts and Oakville continues to get outplayed, Brantford kept up their great play from the first period and kept the pressure on the Blades.
Brantford was rewarded for their play with another goal by Josh Sordo assisted by Ryan Vannetten and Ben Graham giving Brantford a 3-0 lead.
Brantford scored again with a goal by Lucas Thompson assisted by Brendan Anderson ending the second period with a 4-0 lead.
The third period was an extremely rough period with tempers flaring on both sides. The rough play started in the first and second but the animosity really started when Oakville’s Jack Blake was hit from behind and Brantford was only given a two-minute penalty.
After that Jack Blake got into a fight with Joseph Meleca and both players were ejected from the game.
Oakville was given a bit of a boost from that fight and was able to get one goal back by Adam Tucci assisted by Chase Strychaluk and Ethan Sullivan making the score 4-1 99ers.
Shortly after the goal Oakville was given a two-minute 5 on 3 but was not able to score on the two-man advantage and the game ended with a 4-1 win for Brantford.
After the game, Ross Sloan commented why Brantford gives Oakville so much trouble saying "Brantford is an unbelievable team with good pace, good forecheck and they don’t give you any room. If you don’t come prepared to play and you give them the lead they are a really good team and a very hard team to beat."
Sloan added, "If you give them a two-goal lead in the first eight minutes as we did they are going to do a really good job."
Dec. 18, 2021. Milton Menace @ Oakville Blades
Due to a public health issue involving the Milton Menace. This game has been cancelled and will be played at a later date.
This also means that the jersey retiring of Jack Ricketts will also be postponed to another date.
After Friday's game, Oakville is now tied with Milton for second place in the west division and six points behind the Burlington Cougars for first in the division.
If all goes according to plan, the Blades will have their final game before the break against the Georgetown Raiders this Tuesday, Dec. 21 in Georgetown.