Ayr Flames 1 may have taken tonight’s win but our #7 Gavin Pakulis
was tonight’s true, game, crowd pleaser with his impressive 3 goals, capturing
all of Paris goals and claiming all the hats in the house with his fancy stick
handling and deeks. His most memorable
goal was his actual hat trick goal, that came in with 0:03 seconds remaining on
the game clock, before the end of the second period.
Right off the hop, our Wolfpack raced hard to the Ayr’s zone and tested their goalie that resulted in a quick goal with under a minute of play in the first period. Ayr recovered quick and rushed to our net to find a goal with two minutes in play. For much of the first period both teams fought hard to capture another goal to settle the tie. It was only into the late part of the period that Ayr turned the score around and they found themselves in the lead on account of two quick goals that baffled Paris.
In between periods our team quickly regrouped, made some player position moves and encouraged a more forward, offensive game style to help balance the score. This new play attitude presented us with two goals in the second period, keeping the scoring with Ayr as close to on par, as possible.
Before the start of the third period, our bench was applauding our players for their hard work and pushing themselves in trying out new styles of play that they first-hand witnessed was responsible for being more competitive. A special shout out goes to both, Austin Koehler and Owen Novak for stepping up and challenging themselves to be more aggressive and fighting for that puck. Their positioning was excellent and this created opportunities for them to receive passes, skate in the puck to the opponents zone and respond with deflections and rebounds on the Ayr net ~ great job you two!
A round of applause to all of our players for their great work tonight, I truly believe the score didn’t hold a true reflection on how well our team played, as we held possession of the puck as much if not more so than the Ayr team. Our forwards and defence did a fantastic job peppering the Ayr net all night long but struggled putting the puck by their goaltender. In fact, I have to contest that Braden’s slap shot that seemed to hit and rebound off of every 4 posts in the net was, in fact, a valid goal.
I want to thank our AP players, Dante Colaiacovo, goalie and Connor Hardie, defence/forward for coming out to help our team on such short notice for the missing Ethan Crozier and Liam McAlister, respectively.
Finally, be sure to mark Feb. 27/16 on your calendar, as we will have the opportunity for a rematch against Ayr Flames 1, this will mark the third game against them, with each team owning a win, so this will be a pivotal game between the two, neighboring clubs.