The Huntsville Jr C Otters dropped a pair of games over the weekend but still hold down third place in the Northern Conference of the Provincial Junior Hockey league.
Friday night, the Otters were shutout 4-0 by the front-running Alliston Hornets, and Sunday they fell 4-3 to the fourth place Flyers in Midland.
Fans on Friday night got a chance to see why the Hornets have yet to be defeated this season. They are very skilled at passing the puck and breaking quickly out of their zone and they have solid goaltending. Alliston has a perfect 14 and 0 win-loss record and have only allowed 27 goals in those 14 games, again tops in the division.
Alliston built up a 3-0 first period lead and added another goal in the second period. Huntsville coach Rocky Clarke was quick to point out that the result was an improvement on a 9-0 loss the Otters had suffered earlier in the season in Alliston.
We held them to just four goals and two of those were power-play goals. We did generate a number of scoring chances but could not capitalize on them and against a team like the Hornets you have to capitalize and get the odd lucky bounce.Coach Rocky Clarke
Clarke was also complimentary of his team’s effort Sunday.
“We outplayed them, and outshot them,” he said, “but could not put the puck in the net. The guys played a good structured game. We played a good portion of the game in Midland’s end of the rink and the guys cycled the puck down low and generated a number of good scoring chances. We are having a tough time right now scoring goals. The guys will just have to work through this bit of a scoring drought. We are creating scoring opportunities and I believe it’s just a matter of time until the puck starts going in for us.”
The Otters next home game is Friday, November 4 against Schomberg. They play in Orillia on Saturday night.
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