After two road losses to Burlington and Collingwood, Oakville tried to get back in the win column with two more road games against Milton and Aurora.
Both teams presented as big tasks for Oakville but the Blades were definitely up for the challenge.
December 9, 2022: Oakville Blades at Milton Menace
Oakville faced off against their division rivals in a pivotal game for both sides.
The Blades needed this win to try and stay in the playoff race, the Menace needed this win to try and keep pace with the teams above them in the standings.
The Menace was also without two of their most important players: defenseman Owen Forester and forward Lucas Buzzoil. Both players are currently playing for Canada East at the World Junior A Challenge.
With those players out, Oakville took advantage and opened the scoring with a goal by Gleb Akimov on a 4-on-3 powerplay to give the Blades an early 1-0 lead.
Only 14 seconds later, the Blades scored another powerplay goal after Jacob Crisp set up Marco Costante for a beautiful goal from the top of the left circle to give the Blades a 2-0 lead.
Towards the end of the first period, the Blades got into penalty trouble after a checking from behind penalty by Aidan Russel put them on the penalty kill.
On that penalty kill, Nicholas Wereha found a loose puck and shot it short-side on the Oakville goalie to cut the lead to one.
Less than a minute later, the Menace broke into the offensive zone and Ivan Fabjan found Aidan Hughes, Hughes sniped the puck top shelf and knocked off Gavin McCarthy’s water bottle to tie the game 2-2.
After a wild period, the first frame ended 2-2.
In the second period, the Blades got into major penalty trouble due to some controversial calls by the officials.
Oakville tried to kill off all of their penalties but were unable to keep the puck out of their net and Jared Coccimiglio scored to give the Menace their first lead of the game and they kept that lead until the end of the period.
The Blades needed a great period in order to get back in this game. They were relying on someone to get a big goal to tie this game.
Though the team fought hard and had many great chances, Oakville was unable to get that third goal and lost this game by a score of 3-2.
After the game, a hot topic was the choices made by the officials, Blades defender Marco Costante felt the calls were pretty even.
"Some were stupid, some shouldn’t be called, it was 50/50."
December 10, 2022: Oakville Blades at Aurora Tigers
After their loss to Milton, the Blades hopped back on the bus and headed to Aurora to play the Tigers.
Oakville was looking for another good effort and also really needed a win.
Unfortunately, the game didn’t start great as Carter Real opened the scoring just under four minutes into the period to give the Tigers an early 1-0 lead.
The Blades answered back with just over five minutes in the period when Matthew Wang scored shorthanded to tie the game at 1.
Sadly, the Tigers got another goal just over two minutes later to make the game 2-1 at the end of the first period.
In the second period, the Tigers opened up the scoring in the period to extend their lead to two goals with a goal by Ryan Evenhuis to make the score 3-1.
But the Blades answered back four minutes later with a goal by Gleb Akimov to bring the Blades within one and that is how the second period ended.
The Blades tried their hardest to get a goal in the third period but was unable to and the Tigers scored another goal 10 minutes into the period to make the score 4-2.
Aurora added another five minutes later and finished the game with a 5-2 win and another loss for Oakville.
Oakville's next game is tonight, Wednesday, Dec. 14, against Aurora at 7 p.m.