By Alex Gallacher
A pair of goals from Aiden McIntosh helped the visiting Trenton Golden Hawks blowout the Haliburton County Huskies 6-2, Saturday at the SG Nesbitt Memorial Arena. In a game that saw a staggering 48 combined penalty minutes awarded, emotions were high as a packed house witnessed one of the seasons more intense games.
Trenton applied the pressure early, but would suffer a double minor as Trystan Mughal was sent off for kneeing. The Huskies made quick work on the power play, Lucas Stevenson buried a feed from Oliver Tarr to put Huskies ahead 1-0. A couple minutes later, the Golden Hawks responded with one of their own.
McIntosh received a pass from Dalton Bancroft and beat Christian Cicigoi, tying the game up at one a piece and ending the Huskies only time leading this hockey game. Heading back to the locker room tied, the second period would see an explosion in scoring … from Trenton. With both goalies standing on their heads, one of them had to give and with five minutes to go, the Golden Hawks went to work.
Jake Laville would rip a shot short-handed past Cicigoi on the breakaway to put the Golden Hawks ahead, and three minutes later Justin Mauro added another tally to end the period at 3-1 for Trenton.
The third period didn’t fair much better for Haliburton, as 27 seconds in Jordyn Mughal netted a feed from his brother Trystan and put the Golden Hawks up 4-1. After this point, the physicality of the game picked up tenfold. First, it was Bannon Butler going off for spearing. Then it was Sami Douglas-Najem taking a two minute time out for roughing, then finally McIntosh scored his second goal of the game when all hell broke loose.
A scrap behind the net led to Joe Boice and Jordyn Mughal getting into a shoving match which quickly escalated, both players went to the ice before being separated by officials. Both players were given ten- minute misconducts, while Bancroft was hit with an unsportsmanlike conduct call to give the Huskies a power play.
On the ensuing powerplay, Nathan Porter broke the streak of five straight Trenton goals with his second of the season. Aaron Jameison would put the final nail in the coffin, and Trenton walked out of Minden with a commanding 6-2 win.
“We had a bunch of powerplays and I don’t think our unit did well,” said Head Coach Ryan Ramsay. “We need to be better and coming off that hard fought win yesterday, having only three lines isn’t what we want but I think we can bounce back next game for sure.”
For the captain Nathan Porter, his goal was a testament to his hard fought night. The team gave it everything they had, but Saturday wasn’t meant to be. Porter was still able to find many positives from that game, and even in a tough loss many players held their heads up high.
“In this league you gotta show up to play every night,” Porter said. “In our eyes this is pretty much a battle for first place, it’s a good lesson for the younger guys to show them if we don’t bring it every single game, that will happen.”
The Huskies concluded their weekend with a 4-3 OT loss to the North York Rangers, but next week will see a busy slate. Thursday (Nov.18) night in Caledon for a meeting with the Admirals, Saturday (Nov. 20) night in Toronto for a meeting with the Patriots. The next home game won’t be until Nov. 26, for another rematch with the Cobourg Cougars.
