Pressing Offense

The Tommies Men's hockey drove the net hard all night, leading the UPEI Panthers 31-29 in shots. UPEI led the goal column though beating the Tommies 7-2.

Tonight is a case where the goal column did not tell the whole story, the Tommies opened the scoring in the first period on a goal from Robert Zandbeek #21 (Morehouse#18, Poulin#8), the Panthers answered back though scoring a pair of goals also in the first from Dana Fraser#12 (MacIssac#19, Desousa#28) and Mike MacIssac#19 (Brown#26, Fraser#12). The Tommies led the period in shots though 11-10.

The second period started with UPEI scoring another pair of goals off the sticks of Dana Fraser#12 (Brenton#57, MacIssac#19) and Travis MacIssac#18 (Knox#9, Desousa#28). The Tommies did score a powerplay marker though, Yuri Cheremetiev#9 (Morehouse#18, Hobbs#12) making the score 4-2 after 2 periods of play for UPEI. The Tommies goaltender Jonathan Groenheyde#31 was visibly frustrated after breaking his stick on the cross-bar. The shots at the end of the period were 13-9 for the Tommies.

The third period opened with a scoring onslaught from UPEI picking up three goals in a matter of four and a half minutes. Tyler Brown#26 (MacIssac#14, Taylor#3), Mike MacIssac#14 (Fraser#12, Brenton#57), Cole MacMillian#79 (McQuaid#89, McCullough#4). Shortly after the last goal was scored Tommies goaltender Groenheyde#31 was replaced by Fredericton native Tyler Piercy #35, who faced and stopped four shots in the remaining minutes of the third period. The shots at the end of the third period were 10-7 for UPEI, the only time all evening that UPEI led the shots column.

It was a tough night for the Tommies this evening, the biggest positive that came from tonight's game was the amount of shots the Tommies were able to get on UPEI goaltender Wayne Savage#1. Savage was tough to solve, bailing out the Panthers on 29 of 31 shots the Tommies put his way.

The Tommies are facing the Dalhousie Tigers on January 25 and Acadia Axemen on January 26, both games are on the road before the Tommies come back to Fredericton to play their two remaining home games of the '12-13' season versus the Squirrels on February 1 and UdeM on February 3 in the annual Lou Chabot game.

Murph

WyldeMurph on Twitter