Nov 18, 2013 | mbell | 196 views
St. Marys 2 - Petrolia 2
After taking a beating from Mooretown the night before the Oilers were back in action against the league #2 team in St. Marys. The Rock were unbeaten going into this highly anticipated matchup. The Oilers fell apart late in the earlier meeting between these clubs and finished with a 7-1 loss as the Rock scored again and again on power play after power play.
The Oilers looked at this game as a new opportunity to show they are a better team than the prior meeting and dearly wanted to hand the Rock their 1st defeat in the process.
The 1st period saw the Rock storm out of the gate with aggressive play, huge hits and some quality chances. The Rock opened the scoring early in the 1st period on a power play and scored again to go up 2-0 just prior to the period ending. The Oilers didn't have much to show for a very strong effort in the 1st frame.
The second period was all Petrolia. Chris Docherty scored on a nice backhander and Hayden Gould slammed home a juicy rebound. Docherty almost put Petrolia in the lead on a short handed breakaway but was solidly stoned by the quality play of the Rock netminder.
Matt Kuipers played an excellent game in shutting down the Rock's normally high potent offence but also at clearing pucks up to his players up ice.
Going into the break the score was tied 2-2. The 3rd period saw Petrolia continue to apply pressure that the Rock didn't have many answers to and resulted in the Rock taking 2 penalties and having Petrolia up on a 5 on 3 power play. Petrolia could not find the back of the net as the Rock blocked shots and did an excellent job at killing off the penalties. The Oilers then found themselves killing a 4 minute penalty of their own. Penalty killing is one thing this young Oilers team does very well and they came through with a solid effort again.
The game ended in a 2-2 tie. St. Marys was in disbelief while the Oilers saw this as getting back to how they can play when everyone shows up to play for the entire game.
Again great work and this should build some momentum into the Strathroy tournament.