“Tonight Tisdale’s power play was better than ours.”
Saying that the opponent’s special teams were better than yours is never something a head coach wants to do, however that is exactly what Yorkton RawTec Mauler head coach Dan Cross admitted following Yorkton’s 6-3 road loss to the league leading Tisdale Trojans on Thursday, December 18.
The Maulers penalty kill surrendered four goals, two of which were five-on-threes, while their own power play, which has come to life recently, managed to find the net just twice on the night in a 2-for-10 showing.
However one of those power play goals, a Kylan Shea marker just 2:56 into the game, gave Yorkton the early 1-0 lead.
But a pair of Mauler penalties less than a minute later, one each to Adam Neibrandt (holding) and Cole Keenleyside (head contact), gave Tisdale an opportunity to draw even, which is exactly what they did as Drew Warkentine made it 1-1 on the first of two Tisdale two man advantage goals.
Tisdale’s Kalem Zary made it 2-1 less than two minutes into the second period with the second five-on-three Trojan goal of the game.
Zary’s second of the night, also via the powerplay, made it 3-1 before Tisdale call up Blake Berschiminsky gave the home side a three goal lead with his first SMAAAHL goal.
Logan Karakachuk third of the season brought the RawTec Maulers to within two to send the game into the second intermission 4-2 in favour of Tisdale.
The fourth Trojan power play marker, a Warkentine goal with 14:28 remaining in the game, made it 5-2 Tisdale.
Carson Welke responded not long after with a power play goal of his own, however that would be the last time the Maulers put a puck past Tisdale netminder Kye Steinke.
Tisdale’s Daven Smith rounded out the night’s scoring with an empty net goal for his fourth of the season to make it a 6-3 final in favour of Tisdale.
Carter Phair took the loss for Yorkton turning aside 34-of-39 shots while Steinke got the win with a 25 save effort.
Following the game coach Cross said that, while special teams ultimately killed them, the team still managed to start off strong on the road against a tough opponent. “We got the first goal and that was good because we wanted that start,” suggested Cross. ‘For the most part I thought it was a pretty healthy first period which we carried the play.
“In fact I think everyone would agree that we dominated them during the five-on-five play which is what we want to do.”
However there weren’t very many times in Thursday’s game where the two teams managed to play five-on-five with each team hitting double digits in the amount of minor penalties issued in the game; something Cross knows his team has to cut down on for the second half of the season.
“We don’t have that big line with big goal scorers so we like to play five-on-five where we can roll our four lines and that’s where we’re going to be the most effective,” offered Cross, continuing, “When we have a game where there aren’t as many penalties, well those are the games that we’re usually in and have a better chance of winning.
“When we take penalties like we did tonight, we sometimes end up in trouble.”
The loss drops Yorkton’s record to 13-10-3 for 29 points, leaving them in seventh place as of Friday morning, two points back of the Prince Albert Mintos (13-8-5, 31 points) and three points behind the fifth place Saskatoon Contacts (15-8-2, 32 points).
With the win the Trojans improve to a league best 20-3-2 for 42 points. Regina (18-5-1) sits second with 37 points while the Notre Dame Hounds are in third place with a record of 18-5-0 and 36 points.
The Battlefords Stars round out the top four with a 17-7-0 record and 34 points.
Up next
The Yorkton RawTec Maulers visited the Saskatoon Contacts this past weekend for a pair of gams, however results were unavailable at press time.
The next action for the Yorkton RawTec Maulers will be Thursday, January 8, 2015, when they host the same Tisdale Trojans. Game time is set for 8:00p.m. at the Farrell Agencies Arena.
