Blake Elzinga celebrates with goaltender Nico Armellin after the St. Marys Lincolns’ 5-1 win over the Listowel Cyclones on Dec. 12. Armellin made 31 saves in the win, while Elzinga scored two goals. Going into the game, Elzinga was on a 17-game goal drought and had just one goal in his last 20 outings. Photo credit: McGinny Photography
By Spencer Seymour
There was no shortage of emotion in the St. Marys Lincolns’ back-to-back battles of Highway Seven, which first saw a strong performance earn them a victory over Listowel, before travelling to Stratford the next night, only to have a great defensive showing spoiled by a disastrous third period.
Head coach Jeff Bradley raved about his team’s performance in their 5-1 win over the Listowel Cyclones on Dec. 12.
“That’s such an important matchup for our team,” Bradley told the Independent. “We have a ton of respect for Listowel. In our opinion, they are definitely one of the top teams in the league. Obviously, they are the defending champions. It’s not hard for either team to get up for that game, but I thought we showed our best all game. We didn’t give up much. Our penalty kill was fantastic. Our goaltending was outstanding. I was thrilled with how we played.”
With 59 seconds left in the opening period, the Lincolns registered their first of three shorthanded goals in the game, with Blake Elzinga one-timing the puck by Cyclones’ goaltender Riley Arts. The goal ended Elzinga’s prolonged offensive dry spell, which saw the Walkerton, Ont. native score just one goal in 20 games and go 17 consecutive games without a goal.
Coach Bradley was pleased with all of his players but acknowledged that Elzinga was one of the major standouts.
“Everybody played really well. All of the penalty kill guys were great, obviously. Nico was excellent in net for us. Blake [Elzinga] gave us exactly what we need out of Blake. I think it was time for Blake to really step into what he is capable of doing night in and night out, and it’s not just about the goal-scoring. He was shooting the puck with confidence, and he competed incredibly hard. I just thought he was outstanding.
“Blake is adored by his teammates,” continued Bradley. “When he is on his game and playing like he did against Listowel, he is a huge help to our team. I think sometimes, it just takes a little reminder to recentre you. It’s very difficult to stay dialled in for 50 games, but we’re in a fight right now. We need wins, and if Blake brings it like he did, he will help us get them.”
Just two minutes and 35 seconds into the second period, Jacob McLellan ended a slump of his own, snapping a 14-game goal drought to put the Lincolns up 2-0. Bradley said the influx of depth scoring the Lincolns continue to rediscover adds an important boost to the team.
“We’re starting to get some goals throughout the lineup. It started at the Showcase when Cornfield got one, Hodkinson got two, and Barch got one. And now, you have Elzinga scoring twice and McLellan scoring one and definitely could have had a second. It’s fantastic because it takes some pressure off of the handful of guys who did a lot of the goal-scoring for us for a while.”
Before the second period was done, Jaden Lee posted his 13th of the year, assisted by Luca Spagnolo. Lee’s shorthanded goal also ended a five-game stretch in which Lee hadn’t found the back of the net.
Spagnolo found a shorthanded goal of his own in the third, which was answered less than a minute later by a Cyclones’ powerplay goal by Harrison Meulensteen. Just over five minutes later, Elzinga ripped home his second goal of the night.
Nico Armellin scored the win in goal for the Lincolns with 31 saves.
Bradley explained it was his team’s physical engagement and implementation of their systems that made it such a successful game for the Lincolns.
“The effort was good, but that’s an expectation for us. Effort is non-negotiable. It was the execution that we were really happy with. In the last two years, we didn’t seem to be quite strong enough to beat the teams who beat us, so for us to take on such a hard team to play against like Listowel and not shy away from the physicality at all and go face-first to try to put them on their heels was something I was really happy with.”
Lincs crater in third period against Warriors
A mere 24 hours later, the Lincolns appeared to be on the verge of their fourth straight win, but instead, they left Stratford having trailed by two goals for just the fourth time this season, losing 4-2 to the Warriors.
Bradley left the game with a very bitter taste in his mouth.
“I was incredibly disappointed,” said Bradley. “It was a very frustrating end to that game because we did such a good job defensively in the first two periods, and honestly, we didn’t give up that many good chances in the third either, but we made some uncharacteristic mistakes. We have to clean up our discipline and our powerplay.”
The Lincolns opened the scoring less than three minutes into the game when Jacob Montesi buried his second of the year, with the lone assist going to Tyler Oletic, his first point as a Lincoln. Later in the first, with just one second left in a powerplay, Spagnolo scored his 18th of the season, assisted by Lee and McLellan.
With the goal, Spagnolo has goals in four of his last five and eight of his last 13 games, as well as points in eight straight.
After a scoreless second and two periods in which the Warriors struggled to generate much of anything in the offensive zone, the game suddenly tilted in Stratford’s favour. Rhyse Brown deflected a point shot to get the Warriors on the board two minutes into the third. Hudson Binder then scored back-to-back goals, which came four minutes and 24 seconds apart. During the final minute, Drew Hodge fired the puck into an empty St. Marys net to seal the 4-2 win for the Warriors. The two-goal deficit was just the fourth time this season the Lincolns have trailed by two goals during a game this season.
According to the team’s internal stat-tracking service, the Lincolns afforded the Warriors very few high-danger scoring chances in the contest, which Bradley mentioned when discussing how the Lincolns let the game slip away.
“We gave up six shots in that home plate area in front of the net in the entire game. In the first two periods, we didn’t give them anything decent in terms of scoring chances. But in the third, it just seemed like everything went wrong. Credit to Stratford; they played great in the third, but it felt like a game where we beat ourselves.
“There were two goals that maybe we would like a save on, but I’m definitely not blaming that loss on Colby [Booth-Housego] alone because we put ourselves in so many positions to not succeed,” Bradley added. “We made turnovers we don’t usually make. We allowed goals we don’t normally allow. And our powerplay is absolutely rotten right now. One or two bad goals shouldn’t sink us like that. We have to score more than two goals.”
The Lincolns’ last game of 2024 comes on Dec. 20 when they host the Kitchener-Waterloo Siskins. The Lincolns resume play after the holiday break on Jan. 3 when they host the Komoka Kings.
