The Waywayseecappo Wolverines will look to carry momentum from Saturday nights shootout victory over Steinbach into Sunday night when they travel to Winnipeg to take on the Selkirk Steelers.
Despite getting off to a less than ideal start against the Pistons on Saturday night, the Wolverines certainly came out firing on all cylinders.
In a 2-0 hole thanks to a pair of funny bounces against, the Wolverines didn’t quit and controlled the pace of play for the majority of the night.
Rayman Bassi and Kris Bladen helped erase Steinbach’s lead before Zach Purcell scored the go-ahead goal for the Pistons. Alex Lucken would send the game to overtime when his point shot beat Thomson Phinney to tie the game up at 3-3.
Overtime would solve nothing and the two clubs would head to a shootout. After exchanging goals, Gerrik Ripley would come in with patience and go upstairs to give the Wolverines the edge. In the end, Colin Ahern came up with the game-winning stop on Carter Loney to secure the 4-3 win.
Head to Head
Through five games against the Steelers so far, the Wolverines have gone 2-2-1-0 with their most recent meetings going the way of the Steelers.
Just over one week ago, the Steelers came into Waywayseecappo and shut out the Wolverines 3-0 by scoring singles in each period while goaltender Austin Deboer stopped all 30 shots sent his way.
The following night in the rematch, the Wolverines found themselves down 3-1 heading into the second period.
With no time left on the clock in the second, Kris Bladen was awarded a short-handed penalty shot and made no mistake with his snapshot that beat Rory Dumelie up high.
Anthony Bilka tied the game at 3-3 midway through the final twenty minutes which would be enough to send the game to overtime.
The Wolverines would head to the powerplay in overtime with no success and Selkirk’s persistence would pay off as Ryan Ostermann would come in alone and beat Colin Ahern to give Selkirk a 4-3 win.
Steelers Outlook
Despite unloading most of their key pieces at the trade deadline, the Steelers have shown no quit in their game down the stretch going 6-2-1-1 in their last ten which included a pair of wins over the Wolverines.
Selkirk did a great job of keeping the Wolverines scoring chances to the perimeter in their last two meetings. Should the Wolverines look to have success they’ll need to drive the net and get to the dirty areas to create chances.
The Steelers now find themselves one point back of the seventh-place Dauphin Kings with one game in hand.
News and Notes
Saturday nights win put the Wolverines back into a fifth-place tie with Virden while those same Oil Capitals hold one game in hand and will see game action against Winkler on Sunday.
After Sunday nights’ game, the Wolverines will have just 13 games remaining on their regular-season schedule.
Five. That’s the number of wins it will take the Wolverines to match last year’s win total. With 14 games remaining, it should be something the Wolverines will be able to achieve and surpass.
Following Sunday nights contest against Selkirk, the Wolverines will travel to OCN on Tuesday night for a quick road trip north.
Where to Watch
Watch tonight’s game between the Wolverines and Steelers live on HockeyTV.com or follow the Wolverines on Twitter @mjhlWolverines for live game updates.