The Davidson Cyclones senior hockey team withstood a late push by the first place Drake Canucks last Wednesday at home to gut out a 3-2 win on a late short-handed marker by captain Derek Allan and remain undefeated in the month of January.
“It was kind of a lucky bounce for our team is more or less what it was,” said Allan about his game-winner with a little over a minute left in regulation. Brett “Siroski shot the puck. It hit the goalie in the pads then hit me in the skates and then I batted it in off my skate. That doesn’t happen very often.”
The goal came with the Cyclones up 2-1 in a wide-open third period that saw the two teams step up play considerably after an evenly matched first two frames. With Drake on their second power play of the third and working the puck down low in the Cyclones zone the Davidson penalty kill managed to spring the puck loose sending Siroski and Allan on a mad rush down the ice resulting in the tally.
The goal capped off a wild third that saw Davidson forwards Carter Smith and Pat Cey ring pucks off the crossbar in two consecutive rushes halfway through the final 20 minutes. These shots gave Cyclones goaltender Brady Willner precious time to catch his breath during a break from repeated shots coming his way from a Drake team intent on breaking his shutout bid after Smith put in his second goal of the game a little under eight minutes into the third.
“Both our goaltenders (Willner and Mark Zoerb) are local kids and you’d be hard pressed in the province to find two better local hometown boys to play goal,” said Cyclones manager and interim coach Kirk Johnson. “It seems like the bigger the game the better they play.”
The Cyclones (8-6-1) and Canucks (12-6) started off the close-checking game with a feeling out first two periods where neither team seemed willing to take the chance of getting themselves out of defensive position and allow the opposition offence to take advantage. The exception was Allan who continually pushed the puck up the ice by racing down the wing and creating opportunities.
The only goal of the first 40 minutes came off a nice back check by Allan who stole the puck from a Drake forward trying to skate it out of his zone before passing it to Smith who wristed a shot past the Drake goaltender midway through the first.
“Derek has been solid all year and good all year,” said Johnson. “He’s a good player. He’s the captain of our team. He’s our leader and it shows out there and we need him to contribute and keep everybody going.”
To read more please see the January 13 print edition of The Davidson Leader.