The Oakville Blades and the Trenton Golden Hawks took to the ice for the first of two meetings between the squads. The Golden Hawks, who skated to a 40-10-5 record during the 2012-2013 season, are off to a hot start this year, racking up a 6-3-0 record to start off the new campaign. Oakville, on the other hand, have been one of the hottest teams in the league as of late, winning the previous five games, including a 7-5 victory against the Stouffville Spirit on Thursday. Oakville didn't manage to even record a single goal following their offensive explosion the night before; unfortunately, as the Golden Hawks managed to best the Blades 5-0 following a four goal outburst in the second period of the game.
The first ten minutes of the match featured great back and forth action between the two strong clubs, testing goaltenders Evan Buitenhuis (Oakville) and Emerson Verrier (Trenton) with five shots each in the early going. Daniel Robinson managed to get the first penalty of the game only eight minutes in when he got called for tripping in his own zone. Less then a minute later, Vince Palermo would make it two Blades men in the box when he got called for charging on Trenton fore-checker Brady Wiffen. The Golden Hawks power-play wasn't kind to Oakville. In the ensuing minutes, Hunter Fargley scored his first of the season to make the game 1-0 Trenton, thanks to a great pass in front by Tyler Donaldson.
Besides allowing the first goal of the contest, “Boots” had to make a ton of quick pad saves directly in front of the net, standing tall on twelve first period shots. At the other end, Verrier stopped all seven shots directed his way during the first, including a couple solid stops while penalized late in the frame. Coming off a 3-0 shutout of his former team in Cobourg on October 7th, the 19 year old is coming off of an injury riddled season the year before; however, he was good enough to record an 18-1-1 record in 2011-2012, his OJHL rookie campaign.
Oakville didn't get off to a hot start in the second. In just the first four minutes of the period, Trenton managed to record seven shots before Oakville finally got their first while on the power-play at 4:47 into the frame. Before they even managed to record a shot Trenton made it 2-0 when Donaldson got his third goal of the season and second point of the match thanks to a backhand shot above the blocker of Oakville's goalie.
The final five minutes of the period didn't look good for the Blades. Continuous pressure by the Golden Hawks resulted in a Nick Santoro marker, making it 3-0 with less then five minutes in the second remaining. Just seconds later, Fabrizio Ricci, who now has goals in all three of the games he's dressed in this season, managed to get the puck between the legs of Buitenhuis and the twine. Unfortunately, this would spell the end for Boots, who would get replaced by 16 year old puckstopper Brendan McGlynn in what was turning out to be a disaster for the home squad. Things didn't get better after the goalie switch, as Wiffen's shot off the cross bar marked his second goal of the game and the fifth of the night for the visiting team. The Blades were out-shot 29-12 after the second period in what turned out to be a four goal frame for the Golden Hawks, who have scored six or more goals twice already this season.
It didn't take long for McGlynn to make the first big save of the third, diving across to make a fantastic sprawling stop on Ricci in front of the net only thirty seconds into the final period. Tensions would begin to heat up afterwards as Oakville's Bzowey and Trenton's Santoro got into a spirited tilt on just the very next shift with no clear winner at the end. Clearly frusterated, Oakville took multiple penalties before the end of the game, including Trenton's second five on three power-play of the match. Despite the penalty parade, McGlynn made many great stops on what should have been a couple of almost sure goals by the opposing team.
A bad line change following a scoring chance at the other end almost ended in disaster for Trenton. Oakville's Joe Seney, Ross Sloan and Kamil Tkaczuk came in on a three on one opportunity at the five minute mark of the period, but Verrier was able to make a fantastic Martin Brodeur-esque glove hand grab to hold on to his shutout for the time being. That save would mark the final save he faced during the game, as Oakville took only two shots in the entire frame, both coming early in the period. Verrier's 14 save shutout was good enough for the Cornwall, Ontario native to record his second straight shutout, as well as the second straight win in as many games for his Golden Hawks.
