An errant trip by Cyclones defenceman Orrin Gryba with 7:54 left in the second period against the Drake Canucks proved the turning point in Davidson’s second-straight loss last Wednesday.

Gryba wasn’t sent to the penalty box on the play that saw the defenceman swipe his opponent’s feet with his stick on a diving attempt to stop a breakaway chance. The referee on the call instead decided to award the Canucks, who were losing 2-1 at the time despite playing the majority of the game in close quarters with Cyclones goalie Mark Zoerb, a penalty shot.

During the free attempt Canucks forward Doug McLeod raced down the centre of the ice shifting the puck from backhand to forward and again to backhand before slipping it low through the pad and glove of Zoerb who had went down to try and slide sideways to stop an expected shot to his blocker side.

“You just try and make him do the first move and then react to it,” said Zoerb, noting a goalie doesn’t usually face many penalty shots during the season, but they do happen.

“A call like that is a referee’s discretion,” said Cyclones coach Jason Shaw. “I could see why he’d call it, but maybe I didn’t think it could be a penalty shot. There is no changing his mind once he’s made that call.”

Canucks forward Derek Eberle struck 4:56 later at the tail end of a power play when he stuffed in a rebound off a Nick Kalnicki shot through Zoerb’s legs from in close giving Drake a lead they would not relinquish. A seeing-eye wrist shot from the point that somehow found the high glove side on Zoerb courtesy of Canucks defenceman Matt Rintoul 14:59 into a defence-first third period for Drake held up as the insurance marker.

Davidson would make it close 3:01 later when assistant captain Brett Siroski tapped in a behind-the-goal-line pass from Chad Manz bringing the score to 4-3 with their goalie pulled, but that would be the closest the Cyclones would come to a second home ice win this season.

“It was a really good game,” said Shaw. “We’re kind of short staffed a little bit right now, but the guys that were there played well. Drake is a good hockey team. We would have liked to win, but we were right there to the end. A couple breaks either way, a bounce here or a bounce there, and it might have been different.”

To read more please see the December 2 print edition of The Davidson Leader.