Friday, November 25th: Augustana Vikings - 2 Portage College Voyageurs - 0
The team played at home on Friday playing the high-flying Augustana Vikings.
Earlier in the regular season, the Vikings had beaten the Voyageurs in two games; 15-0 in the Voyageurs first game of the year in Camrose and then lost 6-2 at the Fleming Cat Arena.
This weekend was an opportunity to win both ends of the home and home series and get four badly needed points.
The game started off well as the Voyageurs out-shot the Vikings 12-11 in the first period and the Vikings had three powerplays but neither team was able to get a goal so the score remained 0-0.
The Voyageurs had one powerplay opportunity in the first period but failed to score on the man advantage.
The Voyageurs actually had three great chances to score and could have been winning 3-0 but…….
Over 15 games of the first half, the Voyageurs have continued to get better defensively but have struggled offensively.
In the first period, the Voyageurs have given up 20 goals against and scored 8 goals.
In the second period, the team has given up 13 goals against but has scored 16 goals.
In the third period, the opposition has scored 19 goals while the Voyageurs have scored 12 goals.
Early in the season the problem seemed to be that in the first period the Voyageur’s team was giving up too many first period goals and getting behind early in the games.
The Voyageurs have done a much better job in the last few games as they have kept the games close but ran out of energy towards the end of the game having to play with a smaller roster.
In the second period Augustana out-shot the Voyageurs 8-9 but neither team was able to score a goal.
Augustana went 0-2 on their powerplay while the Voyageurs went 0-1.
The third period saw the Voyageurs out-shot Augustana 10-7.
However, the Vikings scored two goals in the third period to win the game 2-0.
The first goal scored late in the third period on their powerplay to give them a 1-0 lead.
The Vikings second goal was scored into an empty net.
I had pulled our goaltender Kyle Birch for an extra attacker in an attempt to tie the game.
Overall, in the game, the Voyageurs had out-shot the Vikings 30 – 22.
Goaltender Kyle Birch (#29) was the “ACAC Player of the Game” for the Voyageurs as he played outstanding for the Voyageurs.
The Voyageur’s had done an excellent job of defending against Augustana’s high scoring team but just couldn’t find the back of the net on their own scoring opportunities.
I thought the Voyageur’s team was very physical without taking too many penalties.
The whole team competed hard right to the end of the game.
The defensemen played a solid defensive game in their own end and kept their game simple making firm and quick outlet passes to the forwards.
In the end the team needs to find a way to score more goals as we are the second lowest scoring team in the ACAC.
Saturday, November 26th: Augustana Vikings - 5 Portage College Voyageurs - 2
The Voyageurs traveled on Saturday to play the Augustana Vikings in Camrose.
The game was the last regular season game for the Voyageurs in the first half of the ACAC season.
The Voyageurs are still playing with only three forward lines as injuries have hampered the team’s efforts to ice a full squad for these all-important ACAC games.
On Saturday’s game the Vikings went ahead 1 – 0 after the first period.
In the team’s pre-game talk I talked about Augustana’s strong powerplay and the way to counteract that was to stay out of the penalty box.
They have the best powerplay in the ACAC this season.
However the only goal of the period was scored by Augustana on the powerplay.
The Voyageurs did out-shoot the Vikings 13 – 5 in the first period but went 0-3 on the powerplay.
The Vikings went 1-2.
In the second period, the Voyageurs out-shot the Vikings 15 – 13 but the score was 3 – 1 for the Vikings on the strength of 2 powerplay goals and a short-handed goal.
The Vikings had taken a 3-0 lead before the Voyageurs scored their first goal in the last four periods of hockey.
Cody Mapes scored his 2 goal of the season on the powerplay.
Assists went to Jory Geddes and Dustin Popowich.
The Voyageurs went 1-3 on their powerplay while the Vikings went 1-2.
In the third period Augustana scored in the first five minutes to take a 4-1 lead.
A minute later Tim Crawley scored his 2nd goal of the season to bring the Voyageurs within two goals of the Vikings; 4-2.
Assists went to Cory Giroux and Lukas Vepy.
However, two minutes later the Vikings struck once more on their powerplay to score the last goal of the game and take a 5-2 lead.
Both teams had 14 shots on goal that period with the Voyageurs outshooting the Vikings 42-32 in the game.
In the two games the Voyageurs had outshoot the Vikings 72-54 but only scored two goals.
Cody Mapes was the “ACAC Player of the Game” for the Voyageurs.
Below is my overall consensus of the first half of the season.
1) Our goaltending is much stronger than it’s ever been and gives the team a chance to win every game.
2) Our defense is physical and 100% better and will continue to improve.
3) We have skilled forwards but need to add more depth at our forward positions as we can’t compete consistently with only three lines.
4) Talking to the players, the team chemistry is exceptional with everyone buying into the hockey program.
5) Discipline is getting much better.
6) We need to improve on both of our specialty teams; the powerplay and the penalty-kill.
7) We need to score more goals, especially the first goal in a game; in the 16 games played we only scored first twice.
I think that we’re a better team than Concordia, MacEwan and Briercrest and we have proven that.
I feel we’re much closer to the top teams than people realize and we could surprise teams in the second semester.
After the first half we’re one point up on Concordia and MacEwan for one of the last two playoff spots.
There will definitely be playoff pressure to secure one of those playoff spots in the second half.
We have 12 games left in the ACAC season with five at home.
Unfortunately, we don’t play another ACAC regular season home game until January 13, 2012 which is 7 weeks away.
The whole ACAC league basically shuts down until January 13th, 2012.
