There was no shortage of goals on Saturday night and luckily for Oakville, it played into their favour as they were able to take down the Buffalo Jr. Sabres 6-5.
The Blades scored the first goal of the contest early on, but it came at a slight cost. At 8:09, Josh Kosack used his quick speed to skate around the Sabre's net before getting a weird bounce from behind the goal line, somehow beating Tucker Weppner from a strange angle to make it 1-0 Blades. Unfortunately, Kosack was hit hard on the play after the goal, resulting in the star forward to require a bit of assistance before heading back to the bench, but the good deed had already been done.
The Sabres would bite back after penalties hurt Oakville. After some nice puck movement in the offensive zone for Buffalo, Aaron Reinig fired the puck past Brendan McGlynn, who was just trying to regain his balance after making a previous save.
Another penalty would erase the tie for Oakville. With Patrick Kudla in the box, Chris Berger found a back door pass to the left of McGlynn, one-timing it past the sprawling goaltender to make it 2-1 for the visiting club before the first intermission.
The Sabres would get their third goal of the game just 2:09 into the middle frame. Bryce Ferrell put his team up by two after somehow finding a way to squeak it through McGlynn's legs, making it 3-1 on the play.
Fortunately for the Blades, the team scored a lucky one of their own. Oliver Benwell received credit for Oakville's second goal, but it would be a Buffalo defenseman that would knock it over the goal line to put Oakville back in the game with most of the game still to go.
Benwell was having a good game, and he grabbed a second point after setting up the tying goal. With Benwell drawing attention with the puck, #14 was able to set up Peyton Reeves right in front of the Sabres net before pulling the trigger for the 3-3 goal with 12 minutes to go in the second.
One-man efforts seemed to be the name of the game in the second period, and the Blades benefitted from that. With exactly four minutes to go in the second, Bryce Misley took the puck from the left corner before deking past a defender and firing a top corner shot from a tough corner, making it 4-3 Oakville. He wasn't the first Bryce to score in the game, but his goal was easily the most important as Oakville was able to take the 4-3 lead heading into the intermission.
Both teams took advantage of some strange goals, but Buffalo got one off of a strange one next. Before the second period was even two minutes old, Griffin Lunn took a wild slap shot from Oakville's blue line on a rush, soaring over McGlynn's glove after the puck was tipped right near the original shot.
But with 15 minutes to go in the game, the Blades took back what they wanted the most: the lead. Patrick Kudla's shot was good enough to make the net, but it would be Tyler Rollo who was there for the rebound to make it 5-4 Blades.
Things were quickly falling apart for the Sabres. Not too long after the halfway mark of the final period, Ryan Foss broke through the middle of two defenders before firing a beautiful shot in the back of the net, giving Oakville the 6-4 advantage at a key time in the game. Buffalo score with five minutes remaining, but it was already too late as the Blades narrowly held on for the 6-5 victory.
With two wins already on the weekend, the Blades will look to sweep the weekend with a road game against the Whitby Fury on Sunday afternoon at 2:10 pm. Oakville will then return back to Sixteen Mile for a rematch against the Sabres next Friday, a 7:30 pm puck drop. Hope to see you there!