By Andriana Guigova
Chalk up another pair of losses to start the season.
The Ryerson men’s hockey team couldn’t handle the Laurier Golden Hawks over the weekend, as they were dealt a 6-2 loss Sunday at Lakeshore Lions Arena. Two goals in the final minute of the first period put it away early, as the high-spirited affair took an ugly turn for the Rams.
“We played them even until the two goals,” said coach Ed Kirsten. “[The goals] were significant mentally. We played the whole period evenly, but lost one-on-one battles.”
With under a minute remaining in the first, Laurier’s Richard Colwill danced around Ryerson’s Chris Pethick to put the first goal of the game past Rams goalie Mark Furman. Less than 30 seconds later, Laurier’s Nick Vukovic got a shot through traffic and into the Ryerson net. “They have to learn how to recover,” said Kirsten of his team. “They get too down on themselves.”
The first-period goals sucked the life out of the Rams, and it took them more than half of the second period to generate a good scoring opportunity. Laurier picked up three more goals in the middle of the second to bring the score to 5-0.
Ryerson managed to break the shutout soon after. With Colwill in the box for slashing, the Rams capitalized with a tally by rookie John Poffley. The goaltending was solid, with Furman’s biggest robbery coming in the third period as Brown broke away in search of his second goal only to be denied. “[Our goaltending] wasn’t outstanding, but it was adequate,” said Kristen. “We didn’t lose because our goalie played bad.” Furman was beat once more with six minutes left in the third.
The Rams replied with the last goal of the game, as Aiden Vandersteen one-timed a shot past Laurier’s goaltender with three minutes remaining. Laurier outshot Ryerson 39-19 in the game.
Losing their season opener against Guelph 4-1 on Thursday as well, Ryerson has room to improve, said Kristen. “We’re pretty close. We’re playing with the other teams for two periods,” he said.
“Next week, we’re going to work on those one-on-one battles.”
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