The Windsor Lancer men's hockey team kicked off their first two games of the 2023-24 OUA regular season schedule on the road in Toronto this past weekend.
On Friday night the blue and gold dropped a 3-1 decision to the TMU Bold in their first outing in the Ontario provincial capital before bouncing back less than 24 hours with a 3-0 victory over the Toronto Varsity Blues in a different rink against another respectable opponent from "The Six" on Saturday afternoon.
STATS
Jake Durham scored the lone Lancer goal and first blue and gold goal of the season on Friday night against the Bold while
Mason Kohn and
Matt McNamara each picked up an assist on the solo Lancer goal that occurred in the first outing of the weekend.
Nathan Torchia had 24 saves in the loss on Friday night to TMU.
Aaron Shaw and
Jacob Boucher each scored their first goals of the season respectively on Saturday against the Varsity Blues.
Meanwhile Durham continued to have the hot stick for the Lancers this weekend as he scored his second goal of the season and weekend on Saturday in the victory over the Blues capping off the weekend with 2 goals (1 in each contest).
McNamara, Kohn and
Keegan McMullen all recorded an assist during Saturday's win over Toronto.
Torchia would turn aside all 21 of the Toronto shots he faced during his second straight match between the pipes on the back half of the opening weekend back-to-back and in doing so earned his first shutout of the 2023-24 season for the Lancer netminder.
HOW IT HAPPENED FRIDAY
It was indeed a battle of two of the OUA's prominent blue and gold squads for the 2023-24 season opener.
Although the Lancers opened with strong offensive pressure, TMU managed to battle back and bury one from the point at 4:38 in the first period and struck another goal later in the first period on the power play at 16:13 to go up 2-0 on Windsor.
The second period saw the Lancers run into some penalty trouble. Despite TMU having three power-play opportunities, Lancer goaltender Torchia held down the Lancer fort.
The tables then turned late in the period to set up the Lancers with a 5-on-3 advantage. As the final seconds faded off the clock, Kohn found Durham with a cross-zone pass, who picked the perfect pocket to get the Lancers on the board.
Teams found themselves evenly matched in the third frame. The Lancers came out with fire under their feet,
Dylan Schives having a few early chances.
Later in the period,
Nic Pavia was getting into the groove with a series of offensive challenges. In the late minutes of the game, the Lancer penalty killers on the ice fought hard to kill off a double-minor power play opportunity for the Bold.
However, the Bold would go on to secure their eventual victory by icing the cake with an empty-netter goal with thirty-six seconds to go. Despite their valiant efforts, the blue and gold ultimately fell to the TMU Bold on Friday night 3-1 at the Mattamy Athletic Centre in downtown Toronto.
HOW IT HAPPENED SATURDAY
The Lancers shifted their focus from the disappointing loss the night before and took to the ice at the Varsity Arena on Saturday afternoon.
The blue and gold opened the scoring towards the midway mark of the first period when Shaw found the back of the net and earning his first goal of the season on an unassisted marker for the Lancers to go up 1-0 on Toronto.
Scoring opportunities were then traded on both sides throughout the remainder of the period but saw no change after the opening 20 minutes of play.
The scoreboard would remain frozen throughout the second period as despite multiple offensive attempts by both sides resulted in failure of increasing the numbers on the scoreboard and the score remained 1-0 Lancers after 40 minutes of play.
In the third period, the scoreboard would finally melt, and it would be in favour of the visiting Lancers who were able to go up 2-0 with Boucher's goal coming early in the third period at 3:07 from McNamara's assist.
The Lancers would make their doubled up lead a triple when a few minutes later Durham notched his second goal in Toronto this weekend to put the blue and gold up 3-0 with his insurance marker from Kohn and McMullen coming in at the 7:18 mark of the third.
Torchia would remain solid backstopping the Lancers to victory with his impressive 21 save performance and earning his first shutout of the 2023-24 campaign allowing the Lancers to hold onto their three-goal lead and eventually earn the 3-0 win.
UP NEXT
The blue and gold will now prepare to host the Nipissing Lakers for their first pair of home games of the season at the Capri Pizzeria Recreation Complex in Windsor on Friday October 13th at 7:30pm and again on Saturday October 14th at 4:00pm.
Fans can purchase their tickets in advance at goLancers.ca or at the gate of the CPRC. The games will also be livestreamed on OUA.tv for fans to tune in from outside the rink.
