Weekend of Ws for Lakers Hockey
The Nipissing Lakers hockey team started the 2011 pre-season with two wins on home ice. Friday night, the Lakers defeated the Carleton Ravens 4-3 in the annual Real Men Wear Pink Game in front of 2,636 fans. On Sunday, the Lakers tamed the York Lions 7-2 at Memorial Gardens. Here’s the Nugget’s coverage of the action:
Watson's goal pretty in pink
By Ken Pagan, The Nugget
Marcus Watson picked the right time for his first goal in a Nipissing Lakers uniform. And it was a pink jersey, too.
Watson scored a highlight-reel goal with 3:26 remaining, racing wide around his defence man and tucking it through the five-hole to give the Lakers a 4-3 win over the Carleton Ravens in front of 2,636 fans in the Real Men Wear Pink Game at Memorial Gardens, Friday.
As excited as the Lakers and their fans should be with the win over one of the top teams in the OUA men's hockey East division, the win came at a price — second-year forward Grant McGee could be lost indefinitely with a suspected broken ankle suffered in a second-period post-whistle scrum behind the net.
"The first word we heard from the doctor and from Grant himself was that he thought he heard a pop when he fell awkwardly," said Lakers head coach Mike McParland. "We're afraid he has a fractured ankle."
Should McGee be sidelined, the fleet-skating Watson, who spent time in the minor-pro East Coast Hockey League last season, would be one of several new players seemingly capable of filling the void.
"I think we saw that we are bigger and quicker this year and for not having done much special-teams work, to score three power play goals was pretty impressive," McParland said. "I liked the makeup of what we had tonight and with what we didn't have out there with the likes of (healthy scratches) Lucas McKinley, Brandon Happeney and Chad McQuaid, we still have some guys who weren't there who are capable, too.
"Again, my job (of making final selections) is going to be tough."
It was the third-year veterans who got the Lakers rolling in the first period, when Sam Hopewell tapped in a Dan Watt feed on a power play to give the Lakers a 1-0 lead, before Brodie Beard buried a Dorian Peca feed in the slot on the power play to make it 2-0.
The Ravens' Jeff Hayes got one back on the power play late in the first period, but the Lakers took a 3-1 lead in the second when Doug Clarkson slid one under Ravens goaltender Ryan Dube.
The Ravens tied it early in the third period on goals from Andrew Self and Joe Pleckaitis, before Watson's goal decided it, taking a feed from Beard in the neutral zone and beating his defenceman one-on-one for the nifty game-winner.
"Watson is dangerous like that and I think he would even be more effective if I could free him up and use him as a winger so he could just use his speed all the time," said McParland. "That's something we'll probably experiment with when (Scott) Restoule gets in better shape. Maybe we'll move Restoule into the centre and Watson to the wing."Daniel Spence earned the win in net, stopping 22 of 25 shots.
Clarkson, who played on a line with Peca and Conor O'Donnell, was pumped about scoring in his first "real" game in exactly two years, although this was still exhibition and so was his last game two years ago with Acadia University.
Clarkson spent the entire 2010-11 season at Nipissing, but could not suit up due to eligibility issues. So throwing on the pink Lakers jersey Friday night was a long time coming.
"It's a lot different not playing an actual game in two years, but I thought it went really well," said Clarkson, noting McParland had been helping him focus on doing the "little things" to get back to game mode. "I was just trying to do simple things and I think our line did well just keeping things simple.
"That's what Mike wants me to focus on, to just do the little things and that's what Conor said before the game — 'the little things make up for the big things.' It's a lot different playing a game, but once I get used to doing the simple things, I can start doing some of the bigger things."
After scoring his goal and celebrating with a pumpernickle, he described the feeling as "unbelievable".
"To come out here tonight in front of all these fans, it was pretty crazy," Clarkson said. "I think it was big just to get a goal right off the bat and get the monkey off my back in the first game and I think it's only going to get better from here."
For Sunday afternoon's game against York, McParland said there will be "four or five" different forwards in the lineup and a couple of new defence men. But cut-down day is coming early next week, with 29 skaters — 28 without McGee — vying for 22 spots.
"We have to move guys, so we can start working on details in practice," McParland said. "With so many guys, it's tough to do a lot of detailed work."
Lakers roar past Lions
By Jordan Ercit, The Nugget
Feel free to make Mike McParland's life a little easier.
Seriously, anyone?
With more cuts looming beginning today for the Nipissing Lakers, six different forwards pleaded their case for more time in camp as freshmen Grant Toulmin, Jacob Verheyden, Matt Paton, Dane Horvat and sophomores Dorian Peca and Doug Clarkson found the net in a 7-2 victory over the York Lions in OUA men's preseason hockey action at Memorial Gardens.
It made a tough decision even harder for Lakers head coach McParland, with returning forwards Andrew Marcoux, Dan Watt, Sam Hopewell, Kevin Rebelo and Brogan Bailey out of the lineup Sunday as well as an injured Grant McGee, who is expected to be sidelined for at least 12 weeks after breaking his ankle in Friday's game against the Carleton Ravens.
Combine that with Marcus Watson's game-winner Friday, a couple nice setups from sophomore Lucas McKinley to Toulmin Sunday and the major junior and OUA experience of newcomer Scott Restoule, and the list goes on for McParland, who has constantly stressed the difficulty of selecting his forward corps.
"If the game had been closer (Sunday), it probably would have given us a better judgment," McParland said. "But the goalie was a little bit shaky today and that hurt them.
"Not the most opportune game to work on things, but it shows we have a quick team that skates well and I think we made York look slow sometimes tonight."
Toulmin was the lone player to score twice for the Lakers, who remain undefeated through a pair of exhibition games, and Billy Stone made 32 saves, including a few solid stops down the stretch in a full 60 minutes of action.
Ryan Andersen and Evan Gravenor replied for York as goaltender David Blair allowed four goals on the Lakers first five shots in front of announced crowd of more than 1,200 people.
On the plus side, the early season depth at forward gives McParland the opportunity to spread his scoring punch across the lineup.
That wasn't the case in the Lakers first season of OUA hockey as Nipissing's top line of Andrew Marcoux, Ryan Maunu and Matt Lahey accounted for almost half of the team's offence.
Likewise last year, when Marcoux, Maunu and Watt supplied the Lakers with more than a third of their 99 goals.
"I was thinking to myself on the bench, imagine if Nick Huard and Lucas McKinley and Grant Toulmin are your fourth line," McParland said. "You're a pretty deep team all of a sudden.
"I thought they looked real good tonight and I think we'll be much deeper than we (were before). I don't think we'll be able to designate just two lines for scoring, I think we'll have at least three."
Toulmin, a six-foot-five native of Langley, B.C., who played three seasons in the WHL with the Swift Current Broncos, said everyone in the dressing room "knows it's coming down to the wire," for cuts, with McParland needing to pare down the training camp roster from 29 skaters to at least 23 by next weekend when the UOIT Ridgebacks and Windsor Lancers visit Memorial Gardens.
"It's definitely in the back of our minds," said the 22-year-old criminal justice major. "So we're going to be giving it everything we've got. We have to leave it on the ice because there's no real second chances.
"Everyone's going to be working their hardest and doing what they can to stay on the team."