The St.John’s Senior Caps split their weekend games for their first road game of the season when they faced the Clarenville Caribous at Eastlink Events Centre on November 16th and 17th
It was a tough battle for the Senior Caps, who fought hard throughout the game despite being down two defensemen. In the first period, the Caps edged the Caribous 3-2 on goals from Kyle McGrath, Brandon Knight and Matthew McKim. In the second, McGrath added his second to make it 4-2 early in the period. In the third, McGrath scored this third, giving him a hat trick, while Knight added two goals, and McKim added two goals and an assist. Tanner Humber-Dredge scored a goal in the contest, and Rumsey added three assists, while Devon Parsons made 30 saves in the 8-5 win.
Senior Caps coach Mike Dyke, said his team played well despite making some lineup changes to cover the team's backend.
“We had three forwards play defence: Tanner Humber, Kyle McGuirk, and Mike Maloney, and they played great. We are lucky we have players with the versatility to switch from forward to defence. It's a big help when you are down bodies like we were. Tanner was our top scorer at the time, and we had to decide to switch our top scorer to defence for a game, but luckily, it paid off.
Positional play in the backend was something the team has struggled with as of late. Dyke said it was something he wanted his team to work on coming into the game.
“One of our focuses was taking care of ourselves and being able to play with leads because so far this year, our two losses have resulted in blown multi-goal leads. We wanted our focus to be on keeping our foot on the gas and locking in our defensive zone.”
In the second game, the Senior Caps dug themselves into a big hole early, said Dyke. The team were down 4-0 before George Walsh broke the shutout in the dying seconds of the first period. In the second period, the Caribou's dominated, adding three more goals to take a commanding 7-1 lead before McGrath scored one on an assist from McKim with about four minutes left on the clock. In the third Mark. Rumsey got on the board on a setup by McGrath and Matthew Smith. McGrath closed out the scoring with the Senior Cap's fourth goal in a losing 7-4 effort.
Dyke said the Senior Caps defensive breakdowns cost them in the second game.
“Early in the game, I thought we were doing well with our forecheck. We were getting the puck behind their defence, forcing them to make plays and causing turnovers. It was working well, but as I said, when we had momentum, one of our mental lapses would end up with the puck in our net, so it was frustrating.”
If there was anything positive about the second game, it was the Senior Caps resolve not to give up.
“When we were down 7-1, our leaders stepped up and ensured no quitting in our dressing room. We scored the next three goals without them scoring any. You never like losing, but there were some positives from this weekend that we can take.”
The Senior Caps will be off next weekend, which Dyke said will give his team some much-needed rest to help the team heal from their injuries before heading back into game action against the Harbour Grace CeeBees on Saturday, November 30th and the Southern Shore Breakers on Sunday, November 31st.
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