It had an all too familiar ring to it… Huntsville Otters fade in the third period… losing their sixth game in a row 5 – 4 to the Schomberg Cougars. The night before Huntsville dropped a 7-3 game in Stayner against the Siskins.
However, this one had a lot of promise.
The Otters led the game until the mid way mark of the third period but three goals in six minutes by the Schomberg team turned a 4-2 Huntsville lead turned into a 5-4 loss.
Cole Gilligan had given Huntsville a 2-0 lead. His second goal on the power play came early in the second period. Matt Priest and captain Nathan Delarosbil got the other Huntsville goals.
Any hope of pulling the goaltender in the final minute of the game to try and get the tying goal by the Otters went out the window when Matt Smith and Chris Goodfellow took roughing and slashing penalties with 33 seconds to play. That infuriated some of their teammates and coaches Brent Tomlinson and Marc Gagnon.
“History repeats itself,” fumed Tomlinson. “We are not a team that has the drive to finish the third period. We don’t have the guts to put teams away. It’s 100 per cent because of discipline. We have veteran guys who can not control or have discipline in the third periods and they cost us every game.”
Coach Gagnon was also upset with the team’s effort. “Tonight’s result was because of discipline,” he said, “ and it’s the same players.”
“It’s time for a change,” said Tomlinson. “A player change is going to lead to a change in attitude and that is what this organization needs. Marc and I came into the organization understanding there was an older regime here and the older regime isn’t getting it done. They are not leaders.”
We came out the best we have started any game. We had buy in, but then as the game went on we got selfish and we let our egos pick up and we paid the price for it in the third period. We will be making players changes by the end of next week.
Coach Tomlinson
Tomlinson would not say what those player changes would be, only that everyone would know by the end of next week.
On the brighter side, Cole Gilligan was named the game’s first star after his two goal performance and Nathan Delarosbil was star number 3.
Huntsville’s next game is Sunday in Caledon against the Golden Hawks. Their next home game is against Stayner Friday October 13th.
There could be new faces in the lineup for that game at the Don Lough arena.
The Otters are now 0 and 6 for the season and while there’s lots of hockey to play it was clear Friday night that both coaches want to stop the slide now before it is too late.
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