Bruins slipping badly with four straight losses
Roger Varley
After being clawed by the Cougars, frozen by the Ice and axed by the LumberJacks last weekend, the Uxbridge Bruins are now riding a four-game losing streak for the second time this season.
The streak started a couple of weeks ago with a loss to the Port Perry LumberJacks. After a week to recover, the Bruins travelled to Schomberg to face the Cougars last Thursday and came away with a 3-2 overtime loss.
The teams traded goals in the first period, with Jack Kemp scoring unassisted for the Bruins. The Cougars notched one in the second with a man advantage and Uxbridge followed suit in the third, courtesy of Kemp, Colin Glecoff and Jordan Bonner. However, Schomberg prevailed with the overtime win.
Coming back home the following night to face the second-place Georgina Ice, Kemp kept his goal-scoring streak going, putting the Bruins ahead just half-a-minute into the game. Officials credited Tanner Ryan with the assist, but it was Glecoff's lifting of an Ice player's stick that gave the Bruins the puck. Georgina responded a couple of minutes later when the puck barely crossed the goal line and then added another. Glecoff combined with Tanner Ryan and Ryan Shier to tie the game and Nolan Winter put the Bruins ahead a few seconds later with a power-play goal, assisted by Glecoff. But the period wasn't over yet, as Georgina put two more pucks in the net to bring the score to 4-3.
Mateo Guerrieri scored his first goal of the season in the second period, assisted by Jake Rigillo, to tie the game once more, leading the Ice to change goalies. But then the roof fell in. Georgina notched a short-handed goal and added two more before the period ended.
The Ice were not finished yet, scoring two more goals in the third for a 9-4 win.
The Cosmos selected Glecoff as player of the game for the Bruins and Ryan Cutler for the Ice.
Then, on Sunday the Bruins visited the shores of Lake Scugog to meet the LumberJacks again and suffered the embarrassment of giving up two power-play markers and two short-handed empty netters as Port Perry rocked them 5-2.
The officiating was less than ideal, but the Bruins' defence was more so. Port Perry scored the only goal of the first period, a power-play goal, with just a minute left in the period.
Shier tied the game five minutes into the second, assisted by Tom NItsopoulos, just a minute after Port Perry had had a goal disallowed. The LumberJacks scored their second goal with the man advantage with only 13 seconds left in the stanza.
In the third, a delayed penalty call led to the LumberJacks' third goal. With two-and-a-half minutes left in the period, the Bruins' coaching staff pulled goalie Robby DiMaria for the extra attacker while Port Perry was a man down, but that led to the first empty netter. DiMaria went back into the nets and Lucas Marshall scored a power-play goal for the Bruins, assisted by Evan Gilbert and Rigillo. Two goals down and less than two minutes remaining, DiMaria was pulled for the second time. The LumberJacks were still a man down after Mac Connelly was handed a slew of penalties late in the period, but they still managed to score their second short-handed empty netter.
Port Perry has now won all five of the games they have played against the Bruins this season.
The losing streak sees the Bruins still mired in sixth place in the seven-team Orr Division, with only six wins in 18 games. They have a chance to recover slightly tomorrow (Friday) night when they host the Caledon Golden Hawks at the arena at 7:45 p.m. Caledon has won only one game so far this season. But then they face the prospect of taking on the league-leading Clarington Eagles, who have lost just two games, next Thursday, followed by another encounter with the Ice at the arena.