The Waywayseecappo Wolverines will look to wrap up their season series against the Neepawa Natives on Wednesday night with a win on home ice.
So far this season, the Wolverines have gone 4-1-0-0 against the Natives, which includes a trio of one-goal games. Waywayseecappo’s only loss to Neepawa came on October 17 when a 3-1 Wolverines lead evaporated in the third period. Neepawa would score with 16 seconds left on a funny bounce and skate away with a 4-3 win.
The Run Down
The Wolverines are coming off back to back losses to the Steinbach Pistons over the weekend. Both games saw the Wolverines within striking distance of tying the game in the third period, but Steinbach did a great job of keeping the Wolverines attack to the outside.
There’s no question that it’s been a tough stretch for the Wolverines to start 2019. Since the change of the calendar year, the club has gone just 1-6-0-0 which includes three, one-goal losses.
Goal scoring has seemed to dry up for the Wolverines, having been outscored 29-13 in the month of January. While averaging 4.14 Goals Against per game, goaltending certainly hasn’t been an issue with Isaac LaBelle giving the club a chance to win on a nightly basis.
Neepawa is coming off a 6-1 road loss at the hands of the Selkirk Steelers on Tuesday night. Despite scoring in the first minute of the game, Selkirk would go on to score six unanswered tallies in the victory.
It’s been a similar month of struggles for the Neepawa Natives with a 1-5-0-1 record in the new year. Despite getting outscored 25-7, the Natives have lost three games by a score of 2-1.
Keys to the Game
Should the Wolverines stick to their game plan and not get into any penalty trouble, the club should see some success. Since goal scoring has temporarily dried up, they will have to try their best to get greasy in front and take any goals they can.
While the Wolverines penalty kill has been in the upper echelon of the league for the entire season, their powerplay has struggled after starting off the first ten games in the top three. Now with a 13.3% conversion rate, figuring out how to score on the powerplay will be key for the Wolverines if they want to make some hay and grind into the playoffs.
News and Notes
The Wolverines will be without Jackson Tonnies and Trent Halfdanson after all three left Sunday’s game against the Pistons with injuries.
Game Updates
You can watch tonights game on hockeytv.com or follow along on social media…
mjhl_Wolverines – Twitter
Wayway Wolverines – Facebook
Instagram – wolverines_mjhl