Blades late rally not enough, fall to Sharks 4-3
The Blenheim Blades, down 3-0 Sunday night at the Blenheim Memorial Arena entering the third period, rallied to tie things at 3-3 by 10:21 only to see the Wheatley Sharks Lucas Poisson score at 15:51 as the Sharks went home with a 4-3 victory.
The loss leaves the Blades in seventh place in the nine-team Provincial Junior Hockey League’s Stobbs Division with 27 points, one up on the eighth-place Dresden Kings, and two behind the sixth-place Petrolia Flyers, as the season quickly winds down.
The Blades (11-21-2-3) have just three regular season games left, and are now idle until a week from Wednesday when they travel to Mooretown for an 8 p.m. tilt with the Flags, before finishing their road season the following night in Petrolia at 7:30 p.m.
Blenheim then wraps up the regular season Sunday, Feb. 9 when the Essex ’73s come to town.
Wheatley’s Alixe Saliba opened the scoring at 17:27 of the first period, with Shannon Olson making it 2-0 Wheatley at 6:17 of the second, and Braedon Caetano firing a powerplay marker at 11:58 to up the lead to 3-0.
After being outshot 19-8 though the first 40 minutes the Blades then scored three times in four minutes and four seconds in the third period to tie things at 3-3 only to see Poisson net the winner late in the frame.
Seth Henderson’s 17th goal of the year got the Blades on the board at 6:17 with assists going to Malcolm Campbell and Christian Moccia.
Matt Cunningham cut the Wheatley lead to 3-2 at 8:24 with his first goal since coming to the Blades from the Sarnia Legionnaires. Matt’s older brother Alex and Sebastian Stubberfield set up the goal.
Campbell’s sixth tally on the year got the Blades even at 10:21 with Moccia and Henderson assisting.
BLADES BITS: Attendance was 362…Chris DeWulf was in goal for Blenheim and faced 24 shots while his teammates fired 19 at Wheatley netminder Kyle Metson…The ice time sponsor was Mike Torrie Freedom 55…Referee Kyle Dowdell called only two minor penalties in the game – both on the Blades.