The Oakville Blades finished off the Milton Icehawks season with a 8-4 victory at home on Friday evening.
The first five minutes saw the Blades take a 2-0 lead after just five shots. Two minutes in, Drew Worrad’s attempt in front got stopped, only to have captain Jackson Bales poke in a loose rebound in a wild scramble to make it 1-0 Oakville.
Then, at 5:07, Bales’ line would strike again. This time, Jack Jeffers took a feed from Daniel Jelic and circled back close to the blue line. Jeffers, known for his strong scoring ability, sent a hard wrist shot by Nick Kidd’s glove and in to make it 2-0 for the home team at Sixteen Mile.
With 9:43 left in the opening period, the Icehawks ended Chris Elliot’s shutout. Playing with a man advantage, Aryan Jusenouski took a pass from Matt Baumann from behind the net and picked a tough angle on Elliot, cutting Oakville’s lead by one.
Drew Worrad wasn’t too happy about the goal and took matters into his own hands. At 11:15, Worrad broke through on a rush into the zone and outmuscled a defenceman before flicking the puck past Kidd, scoring the shorthanded goal to make it 3-1.
Before the period ended, Oakville scored two more goals. With all the room in the world to make a play, Sal Filice made a cross-crease pass to Christian Rajic, who easily sniped one home into a wide-open cage.
Then, with two minutes left, Tyler Hildebrandt made it 5-1 after easily firing a shot past Kidd’s glove, a weak one that put the Blades well in the lead heading into the second frame.
Thomas Maia got Milton their second goal of the game halfway through, but Oakville wanted their four-goal advantage back. At 16:41, Bales got his second of the night after stealing the puck in his own zone while shorthanded before blasting into the Milton zone all alone. Bales made no mistake on the play, deking out Kidd to make it 6-2 for the home team.
The Blades scored another one out of Worrad, this time on a very similar play to Rajic’s goal. Some crisp passing between Bales and Jelic saw Worrad finish off a great tic-tac-toe play to make it 7-2.
But then Milton scored a pair of goals to make it 7-4. First, Maia scored again, this time coming on the breakaway at 7:13. Then, a minute later, Justin Paul fed the puck in front of the net and Zac McInall tipped in the pass to make it 7-4. A Bryce Misley goal with under five minutes to go, however, would give Oakville their four-goal lead back, which would hold for the remainder of the game to give the Blades the 8-4 victory on Friday.
The Oakville Blades will play their final home game of the 2016-2017 regular season on Saturday night when the Markham Royals come to town for a 7:30 PM matchup. Hope to see you there!