The Friday game against the Natives ended in a 5-4 victory after a busy first period. Early in the first at 3:18 Neepawa’s Rhys Bremner scoring his first of the season, giving Natives the early 1-0. Just over 3 minutes later at 6:28, Virden’s Hunter Cloutier scored his tenth of the season to tie the game at 1-1. The Natives took the lead again when Brady Morrison scored his third at 10:18 on the power play for a score of 2-1 for Neepawa. 2 minutes later at 12:17, Oil Capitals Nolan Dawson scored his fourth to tie the game back up at 2-2. Later in the period at 15:18 the Oil Capitals took the lead when Kolten Kanaski scored his fifteenth on the power play to put Virden up 3-2 headed into the second period.
The second period started early with Hunter Cloutier scoring his second of the game, eleventh of the season, at 1:49 to extend the Oil Caps lead to 4-2. Neepawa’s Rhys Bremner scored his second of the game, second of the season, at 10:36 to cut Virden’s lead to 4-3. A couple minutes later Oil Capitals Tristan Thompson scored his sixth of the season to extend the Oil Caps lead to 5-3 headed into the third period.
The third period saw just one goal with Natives Will Highet scoring his seventh on the power play, making the final score 5-4 for the Virden Oil Capitals.
Virden’s Riley Wallace picked up the win stopping 20 of 24 shots for a save percentage of 83.3%. Neepawa’s Ethan Peterson took the loss stopping 33 of 38 shots for a save percentage of 86.8%.
Head Coach Tyson Ramsey had this to say after the game, “I thought we were real good through 2 periods tonight and then in the third I thought we sat back a bit and then were undisciplined late in the game and that just about cost us. I thought our group of 6 defence were real good tonight. They got back to pucks quick and were good pick movers through the whole game. At the end of the day we battled through to get 2 big points on the road and we’ll get back home and get ready for tomorrow night against the Blues.”
Saturday night against the Winnipeg Blues the Oil Capitals dominated with a 9-2 final score and shots in favour of the Oil Capitals 52-24. The first period kicked off quick with Josh Belcher scoring his eighth just 7 seconds into the game to give Virden the early 1-0 lead. The Oil Capitals Hunter Cloutier scored his twelfth of the season at 6:52 to extend the Oil Capitals lead to 2-0. Winnipeg’s Josh Ernst scored his second of the season at 13:58 to cut Virden’s lead to 2-1. Just under a minute later Oil Capital Owen Blocker scored his third of the season at 14:54 to make the score 3-1.
The Blues kicked off the scoring in the second with Mikol Sartor scoring his seventh of the season to cut the Oil Capitals lead to just 3-2. Just 7 seconds later at 6:16 Dylan Halliday scored his seventh to give Virden the 4-2 lead. Josh Belcher scored his ninth of the season, second of the game, at 8:39 to give the Oil Caps the 5-2 lead. Just under a minute later at 9:20 Brett Paddock scored another goal for Virden, with his third of the season the Oil Caps then took a 6-2 lead. Brett Paddock scored his fourth of the season, second of the game, at 12:50 on the power play to make the score now 7-3 for the Oil Caps. Hunter Cloutier scored his second of the game, thirteenth of the season at 14:28 making the score 8-2 headed into the third period.
The third period saw only one goal early in the period. Virden’s Hunter Cloutier finished off his hat trick by scoring his fourteenth of the season at 1:47 to give Virden the 9-2 lead they maintained until the end of the game. Final score vs the Winnipeg Blues was 9-2.
Winnipeg’s Will Gurski took the loss after playing the first period and stopping 18 of 21 shots for a save percentage of 85.7%. Cooper Hatfield took over for the Blues at the beginning the second period and he stopped 25 of 31 shots for a save percentage of 80.6%. Virden’s Kyle Kozma picked up the win stopping 22 of 24 shots for a save percentage of 91.7%.
Next Home Game: Friday Nov 15th vs OCN Blizzard