The Oakville Blades hockey team broke their five-game losing streak on Sunday, beating the Pickering Panthers.
With the Blades having a narrow one-point lead over the Brantford 99ers for the last playoff spot in the West division, every point in the standings this week will be the most important stretch of games for the Oakville Blades.
Sunday’s big game was against the Pickering Panthers who are currently fighting with the Toronto Jr. Canadiens for the top spot in the entire OJHL.
The game didn’t start off great for the Blades, as Jake Partridge took advantage of an Oakville turnover and backhanded the puck past Cole DeFazio to give Pickering the early 1-0 lead.
Luckily for the Blades, they answered back with a goal of their own around seven minutes later.
Lucas Smith took a shot from the left-wing boards that was tipped perfectly by Aiden Taylor to tie up the game for the Blades at 1-1.
Sadly for the Blades, the Panthers scored a strange goal about three minutes later.
Kevin Lucey took a shot from the point that took a funny bounce off of Oakville’s goaltender and ended up in the back of the net giving the Panthers a 2-1 lead.
Then with just over one minute left in the period, Christos Rodis found Ian Martin with a wide-open net and Martin made no mistake and gave Pickering a 3-1 lead just before the period ended.
The second period saw the Blades get back in the game and start a comeback.
The comeback started when Josh Kudo took a pass from Mason Zebeski and Kudo came down the left wing and snuck a shot by Pickering goaltender Zachary Roy making the score 3-2 Pickering.
Then with just over five minutes left in the period, Callum Arnott jumped on a loose puck and backhanded it home to tie the game 3-3.
Both teams traded chances for the rest of the period and both teams ended the second frame at a 3-3 tie.
In the third period, Pickering took the lead back after Christos Rodis sent a no-look pass right into the tape of Ian Martin and Martin scored to give Pickering the 4-3 lead.
The Blades now found themselves in a familiar position, many times this year they have found themselves tied at the beginning of the third and surrendered a goal in the third period and were unable to get another goal and force overtime.
However, this game turned out to be different. With just under five minutes left in the third period, Callum Arnott found open ice and sped into the Pickering zone.
Arnott passed the puck across the ice and wide a wide-open Chase Strychaluk for his 24th goal of the season and his team-leading 62nd point of the year to tie the game at 4-4 and be able to force overtime.
Even just the single point for forcing overtime would have helped the Blades but Oakville was looking for more than just one point.
The first chance of overtime went to the Panthers but DeFazio stood strong and froze the puck giving the Blades a defensive zone face-off.
After the face-off, the Blades regained possession and headed up the ice on a 3-on-1.
Evan Pringle fed Jacob Crisp with a great pass and Crisp shot the puck top corner for the 5-4 overtime win.
The goal meant so much to the team that both Evan Pringle and Zach Wigle jumped in the air with excitement before they jumped on their teammates and celebrated their biggest win in many weeks.
With this big win, The Blades now regain a three-point lead over the Brantford 99ers for the last playoff spot in the West and the team has their final three games of the season all at home this week against Collingwood on Tuesday, Aurora on Friday, and Milton on Saturday.