This past week the Oakville Blades played the Brantford 99ers and Georgetown Raiders twice. Here is how the Oakville Blades played.
Dec. 9, 2021. Oakville Blades @ Brantford 99ers
The Blades started their week of three games in three days in Brantford for a showdown against the 99ers.
Oakville looked to get back in the win collum after losing against Pickering in their Teddy Bear Toss Game last Saturday.
A big storyline was AP goalie Claudio Ardellini getting the start for Oakville. An AP player in hockey is someone eligible to play on their team and play on another team of higher age or division.
So Coach Ross Sloan gave the rookie the start as his first big test in the OJHL.
The game started well for Ardellini, who made a couple of excellent saves in the first two to three minutes.
Unfortunately, the Blades gave up a two on 1 when Brendan Anderson scored, assisted by Easton Wainright and Kris Fugalis gave the 99ers a 1-0 lead.
The Blades had their chances but couldn’t capitalize, so the period ended 1-0 99ers.
The second period saw more of the same from the Blades. Our team kept getting chances, but Brantford’s defence and goaltending were up to the task, shutting down the Oakville offence.
Brantford was rewarded for their play with a goal by Joseph Meleca, assisted by Jaden Lee and Kurt Watson, making the score 2-0.
The period saw no more scoring, and the second period ended with a 2-0 Brantford lead.
The third period saw another quick start from Brantford as Ryan Vannetten scored assisted by Marek Vanacker and Easton Wainright, giving Brantford a 3-0 lead.
Oakville was able to get back in the game with a goal by Adam Tucci assisted by Matthew Wang and Brendan Bowie, making the game 3-1 99ers.
After that goal, the Blades tried to get another goal on the board, but Justin Wu stood firm and made some great saves, most notably on Parker Murray near the end of the game, and the 99ers took the game 4-1.
After the game, Jack Blake commented on why Brantford has beat Oakville so many times this season, saying, “they work hard. They forecheck hard. They are ready to play every shift. They started a little better than us tonight. I thought we were a little slow to start, and it doesn’t help our game if we start slow, and that’s how they get to us a little quicker.”
Dec. 10, 2021. Georgetown Raiders @ Oakville Blades
After a sloppy game against Brantford, Oakville came back home to face another west division rival in the Georgetown Raiders, who the Blades have not beaten this season.
The Blades hoped to have a much better start to their game than they did against Brantford.
Unfortunately, the game started worse for the Blades as Brandon Kakei scored assisted by Chris Ishmael off of a bad turnover by Oakville’s Josh Kudo to give Georgetown a 1-0 lead.
The rest of the first period saw many high danger chances for Georgetown, but Cole DeFazio was able to keep the score at 1-0. The teams headed into the first intermission with Oakville down one goal.
The second period started, and the Blades had a sense of urgency.
Their offence started to click. The Blades began to get quality scoring chances on Georgetown goalie Sebastian Labora.
Oakville finally got rewarded for their efforts when Aidan Taylor scored his first career OJHL goal assisted by Mason Zebeski and Jacob Crisp, tying the game 1-1.
The Blades' powerplay had been struggling in recent games, but this time Chase Strychaluk put home the rebound assisted by Adam Tucci and Brendan Bowie, giving Oakville a 2-1 lead.
After that, Oakville found itself on another powerplay. Once again, Chase Strychaluk found the back of the net assisted by Cole Weinger and Brendan Bowie, extending Oakville’s lead to 3-1. That is how the second period ended.
The start of the third period was not the best for Oakville. The Blades looked to continue playing a stress-free third, but the Raiders had other ideas.
Four minutes into the third, Brandon Kakei capitalized off of a turnover by Jacob Crisp to make the game 3-2 Blades.
Then with less than 10 minutes left in the game, Rhys Chiddenton scored on the powerplay assisted by Peter Stojcevski and Owen Holmes, making the score 3-3.
With momentum swung the other way, the Blades needed a big play to turn the tides.
The Blades got a rush 3 on 2 chance, and Brendan Bowie sent the puck to Andrew Brown. Brown makes a beautiful pass to Adam Tucci, who shoots the puck into the empty net, making the score 4-3 Blades.
The Blades fought hard for the rest of the game to edge out a tight win, securing a 4-3 win and a big two points against a divisional opponent.
After the game, Blades goalie Cole DeFazio commented on how he could hold firm with the shot count being 39-20 in favour of Georgetown, saying, “The more shots I get, the better I feel out there. My team allowed me to get in the game, and it felt great. I give all the credit to my defence; they let me see shots and their blocking shots out there for me too, so that was huge.”
Dec. 11, 2021. Oakville Blades @ Georgetown Raiders
With spirits up after a big win the night before, Oakville looked to wrap up their week with another win in Georgetown against the Raiders.
This season, Oakville hasn’t had the best luck in Georgetown. They looked to turn that around in this game.
The first period saw a very even game with chances going both ways. Much different from the day before, where Georgetown outplayed Oakville in the first period.
Then the momentum changed. Blade's Owen Wilson sprung Josh Kudo on a partial break thanks to Kudo’s blazing speed. Kudo then set the puck up to Chase Strychaluk, who scored, giving Oakville a 1-0 lead.
Shortly after the goal, the first period ended with Oakville having the all-important first lead of the game.
Early in the second period, Chase Strychaluk found the back of the net again for his second of the game and fourth in his last two games, assisted by Adam Tucci and Parker Murray, extending Oakville’s lead to 2-0.
Shortly after, Evan Pringle scored off a strange bounce assisted by Josh Kudo and Chase Strychaluk, extending the Blades lead to 3-0.
The rest of the period saw no more scoring, but Oakville goalie Tristan Malboeuf had a fantastic period keeping his shutout alive and keeping the score at 3-0 as the second period ended.
Oakville got another goal four minutes into the third period by Mason Zebeski, assisted by Aiden Taylor and Zach Wigle, making the game 4-0 Blades.
Shortly after that, the Blades killed off two straight five on three penalties keeping Malboeuf’s shutout intact.
The penalty kill was highlighted by three straight blocks by Oakville’s Chris Gjoncaj to keep the score at 4-0.
The time ticked down, and with twenty seconds left in the period, Georgetown hits the post and nearly scored, but that is as close as the Raiders would come to scoring.
Oakville wins the game 4-0, and Tristan Malboeuf gets his first career OJHL shutout.
After the game, Malboeuf commented on his first shutout, saying, “It feels awesome. The team did an awesome job. I even told them that in the dressing room, and if we don’t block those shots, this doesn’t happen. It was a great team win.”
Chase Strychaluk commented on his recent success, saying, “I’m capitalizing on the powerplays, three of the four have come off of the powerplay, so my teammates are finding me there, and I’m just putting the puck in the back of the net.”
Strychaluk talked about how Oakville has been able to be successful against Georgetown after losing to them early in the season, saying, “I just think we got a lot better as a team, we’re really young, so we are getting better and better, and I think that shows since we are beating Georgetown now after losing to them early in the year.”
After this week’s slate of games, Oakville is now second in the west division with 35 points, three behind Burlington for first and a 17-11-0-1 record.
Oakville’s next game will be Friday against the Brantford 99ers at Sixteen Mile, as they hope for a better game than the one they had on Thursday.