The Oakville Blades are now in a must-win situation against the Orangeville Flyers after losing 5-1 on Wednesday.
With about nine minutes left in the opening frame, the Orangeville Flyers opened up the scoring. The first few minutes seemed dominated by Oakville, with the Blades forcing Wyatt Pickrell to act sharp early in the contest. The Flyers, however, were able to grab the first goal of the contest when James McLaughlin recorded his third goal of the year with a wrist shot from the hash marks.
Unfortunately, McGlynn's night came to an early end. With 2:15 remaining in the contest, Ryan Anton took a shot from the point that squeaked through McGlynn's pads and in. The Blades netminder appeared to have been screened on the play, but it still resulted in a goalie switch. Coming in to replace McGlynn was Daniel Mannella, who was successful for Oakville in their 5-1 victory on the road last Saturday against Orangeville.
Oakville's luck didn't get much better in the second. Six minutes in, Darren Nesbitt took the puck away from Paul Butler at the Orangeville blue-line. Nesbitt was unsuccessful with gaining much momentum in the neutral zone, but his teammate Devon Gillham stole the disk and went in all alone, beating Mannella through the five hole to make it 3-0 Oakville.
The Blades finally were able to pot one home at the half way point in the second. After some sustained pressure, Matt Lippa sent the puck over a diving Orangeville defenseman and right to Max Lindsay, who made no mistake firing it past Pickrell to end his shutout.
As expected, the intensity was surely in the air in the third. Both teams had their share of rough plays, resulting in some big penalties for both clubs. For Oakville, Ryan Garvey took a four minute spearing penalty midway through the third, something that the refs let go multiple times so far in the playoff series. A penalty to Sean Kohler shortly after resulted in a 5-on-3 advantage for the Flyers, where Connor Stack was able to put one past Mannella on the doorstep for the 4-1 advantage.
The Blades needed to score if they were to take off some of the pressure heading into game five. With just under six minutes to go, Blades head coach called Mannella to the bench in favour of an extra attacker. The plan didn't work, unfortunately, as an empty netter by Gillham and a speedy glove hand from Pickrell resulted in oakville dropping the game 5-1 on Wednesday.
The Blades will play in a must-win match on Friday for game five of the Southwest division playoff series. Game is set for 7:30pm at Sixteen Mile Sports Complex in Oakville, hope to see you there!