onight Game Notes:
Welcome fans to tonight’s MJHL quarter-final playoff action featuring the visiting Winkler Flyers (4) and your hometown Virden Oil Capitals (5). Tonight’s game is brought to you by Fox Tail Hauling Ltd.
Today’s edition of the Virden Empire-Advance talked about different stats and accomplishments from both teams throughout the regular season and how these two teams stack up against each other. Ultimately none of it really matters as the playoffs are completely different season and all teams have a 0-0 record. Well, that was until Wednesday night when the Oil Caps took game one of the series 3-2 in Winkler.
The first game of the series took place two nights ago in Winkler. Both teams appeared to be kind of feeling each other out through the opening period as shots were 9-8 for Winkler with no score to report.
The Flyers came out hard in the second and capitalized on a 5-on-3 power play opportunity that saw Jon Carlson give the Flyers a 1-0 lead. This appeared to spark the Oil Caps a little bit who got a beautiful goal from Clay Van Diest on a nice set up from Dylan Thiessen and Mack Hardy to tie the game at 1-1 after 40 minutes.
It was a tightly checked contest into the third period until Torrin Grange capitalized on a Flyers turnover in the neutral zone and walked in all alone, beating Dasan Sydora off the far post to give Virden a 2-1 lead. The Oil Caps took control from there and with 3:20 to play in the third,Corey Haverstick added some insurance to the club to make it a 3-1 hockey game.
The Haverstick goal turned out to be a big one as the Flyers scored with their extra attacker on the ice and their net empty to make it a one-goal hockey game with 1:03 to play. However, the Oil Caps would hang on to the lead and take the opening game of the MJHL quarter-final series by a score of 3-2.
Looking into tonight, the Oil Caps will go with Sean Kuehn once again between the pipes. He was rock solid in game one and will be the go to guy during the Oil Caps playoff run. Carter Cowlthorp will be in the lineup tonight as Kurt Johnas will sit out to take care of an upper boddy injury.
Please take a minute to view the Oil Caps trophies on display tonight on the main concourse. The team held their annual year-end awards banquet last Thurday night presented by Fox Tail Hauling. It was a fantastic evening that honoured several different receipients. Thank you to everyone who attended and were award and wine partners at the event.
Make sure you purchase your 50/50 tickets tonight. Tonight is a guaranteed pot of $2,500!! That means that someone will walk away tonight with no less than $2,500 in their pocket.
It’s the first glimpse of playoff hockey for the Oil Caps faithful tonight in Virden in 2015. Be loud, be proud, and show your support for tonight’s game 2 action!