By Barb Karadimos
The Ryerson Rams encountered a few potholes on the road to the playoffs last weekend.
The Western Mustangs and the Windsor Lancers gave the Rams a tough time on the ice at St. Michael’s Arena Friday and Saturday and it showed on the scoreboard. The Mustangs beat the Rams by a score of 8-2 and hte Lancers won by a tally of 7-3.
“We played like ass,” said Rams centre Mick Mitrovic after Friday’s game against Western. “We just weren’t mentally prepared.”
But for a while the Rams challenged the Mustangs. Although the first period was a struggle to get out of their own zone, there were some notable highlights. Andrew Escott looked sharp in net, and a beautiful blocked shot by Tony Vidinovski on a late Western power play helped to turn the momentum by the period’s end.
The power play clicked for the Rams at the beginning of the second period. Gary Black’s point shot was tipped in by Eric Tonellato to cut Western’s lead in half. But Western responded a minute later with a power play of their own. The Mustangs made it 4-1 on an unassisted goal by Greg Pajor, who came around the net and beat Escott with a well-timed wrist shot upstairs.
Escott redeemed himself with some brilliant saves but the real story of the period was the Rams inability to convert an extended five-on-three advantage into some points. The Rams had three consecutive two-man advantages in the last five minutes of the period, but aggressive penalty killing by Western and the goaltending of Richard Gallace kept the Rams off the scoreboard.
That set the tone for the third period, as the Mustangs blew the game wide open. Two goals scored by the Mustangs sixteen seconds apart put the game away.
The Rams came back on Saturday to face the Windsor Lancers, who they had beaten 2-1 earlier in the season. The temp seemed to be set early as Anthony Miele scored only 19 seconds into the game to put the Rams ahead. But hte Lancers, who forgot their hockey jerseys and socks at home and had to resort to old St. Michael’s uniforms. took it as a wake-up call and responded with a goal of their own at the five-minute mark. The rest of the period was choppy as both teams looked fatigued and disoriented.
The second period was a series of misfortunes for the Rams. Minutes into the period, Andrew Escott got caught out of his crease and had his stick held by a Windosr opponent with no penalty called. Escott could not recover in time and the Lancers took the lead. It had a snowball aeffect, as the Lancers scored five more goals to put the game out of reach.
“It was a tough weekend,” said Rams’ coach Louis Carnavale. “I guess that after winning back-to-back games (against RMC and Queens), we got a little too cocky.”
The Rams go to Quebec next weekend to take on McGill and Concordia before returning for their final homestand against Waterloo and Laurier.
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