Weekend Watch | Gryphons look to keep rolling
Toronto, Ont. (via 49 Sports) - As teams continue on their quest for the Queen's and McCaw Cups, they've reached the final sprint towards the winter break. While there's still plenty of time left of the schedule, it's becoming clear how valuable points will be down the stretch.
49 Sports takes a look at three storylines to track in this week's OUA Weekend Watch.
WHKY: Can the Guelph Gryphons keep rolling?
Don't look now, but the Guelph Gryphons are quietly picking up steam. After dropping their opening game 6-1 to the Waterloo Warriors, the Gryphons have secured points in five consecutive games, going 3-0-2.
Guelph split their contests last weekend with a 4-0 win over Western followed by a 4-3 shootout loss to Queen's, but into the fourth week of the season, the Gryphons sit cleanly in second in the OUA West Division.
Hannah Tait leads the way offensively with six points (three goals, three assists), but the key for the Gryphons has been the balance of their attack, with twelve different players picking up goals so far this season.
In goal, Martina Fedel struggled in allowing six goals on opening night, but has allowed just two goals in her last three starts, all wins for Guelph. All told, Fedel sits at 3-1-0 in four starts with a 2.00 GAA, and a .913 save percentage.
The Gryphons have a pair of games this weekend to try and tighten their hold on second place in the division, firstly when the Windsor Lancers travel to Guelph for a Friday night matchup before the team heads to Toronto to take on the Varsity Blues.
The Lancers are another side that started slowly but have quickly begun to heat up. Windsor went 0-2-1 in their first three games; however, they have rattled off three straight wins since, including back-to-back victories over Laurier a week ago.
What are the significant changes for Windsor? First in goal, with Kristen Swiatochik starting two of the three wins and allowing a single goal on a .985 save percentage. That's coupled with sophomore Jaden Cherry slowly taking over on offence. Cherry leads the Lancers with six points (two goals, four assists), including four in her last four games.
The Gryphons controlled this matchup in 2021-2022, winning all three head-to-head matchups, but the Lancers will look to change that and keep their win streak rolling.
The second matchup for Guelph sees them take on the Varsity Blues. Toronto is a team almost eerily similar to the Gryphons. After an opening-game loss to the Waterloo Warriors, the Blues rattled off four straight wins to steer themselves into second in the OUA East.
The big reason for the Blues' success is between the pipes, as Erica Fryer and Madeline Albert have been on a different level this season. After her 4-2 loss to Waterloo on Toronto's opening night, Fryer has allowed just a pair of goals in her next two starts. How has Albert topped that? By only allowing a single goal in two starts with a .976 save percentage.
It is very early in the year, but as Fryer and Albert continue to heat up, the outcome looks better and better for the Varsity Blues.
Toronto hosts the Queen's Gaels at Varsity Arena on Friday night before the Gryphons come to town on Saturday night.
WHKY: Can the TMU Bold ride the momentum of last week's blowout win?
A four-game losing streak saw TMU pot just four goals, but in a game on November 5th against the Western Mustangs, everything seemed to click for the Bold as they controlled the game from start to finish on the way to a 5-0 win. That win moved TMU to 2-3-1 and into a tie for fourth in the OUA East Division. The question now is, with a pair of difficult opponents on tap this weekend, can the Bold ride the momentum of their blowout win up the standings?
With just nine goals in four games, the book was out that TMU was struggling to score this season, but even their 5-0 revealed a facet of their offensive game that the team has not found an answer for. Despite seven opportunities, the TMU powerplay could not find a goal. That dropped them to 10.3% on the year, tied for eighth, but that's on 29 attempts, which ties them for the top spot in the conference.
The offensive load for TMU has been taken up by a pair of veterans, Erika Crouse and Brooklyn Gemmill, each with five points. It's very promising for the Bold to see Crouse picking up offensively again as the 2019 OUA & U SPORTS rookie of the year struggled in 2021-22 with just three points in 11 games.
Friday night sees the Waterloo Warriors come to the Mattamy Athletic Centre. The Warriors remain the OUA's only undefeated team at 6-0-0, and it's not surprising to see why with the league's top scorers in Leah Herrfort and Tatum James. At the same time, goalie Mikalya Schnarr (4-0-0, 1.25 GAA, .948 save percentage) holds it down in net for the black and gold, including stopping 19 of 20 in their 2-1 OT win over TMU on November 3rd.
Waterloo is a difficult matchup, but TMU's weekend gets more demanding as they turn around less than 24 hours later and head to Oshawa for a date with the Ontario Tech Ridgebacks.
The Ridgebacks have struggled since opening weekend, dropping four of their last five games, including a mid-week 3-1 loss to the Nipissing Lakers on November 9th.
The challenge for the Ridgebacks is that while they lead the OUA with a 34.8% powerplay, Ontario Tech has only picked up six even-strength goals in seven games.
It's a back-end performance pacing the Ridgebacks this year, as veteran defender Nicole Escano sits in fifth place in the OUA, scoring seven points (one goal, six assists).
In goal, the Ridgebacks have seen two wildly different performances. Zoe McGee, who started the majority of games for the Ridgebacks a year ago, sits at just 1-3-0 with a .905 save percentage and a 2.76 GAA (which places her outside the top 20 OUA goalies).
On the other side, though, fifth-year Brooke Vial, who, back in 2019-20 with Ontario Tech, finished without a win (0-6-0, 3.69 GAA, .887 save percentage), has started her season 2-1-0 with a 1.67 GAA and a .950 save percentage, good for seventh in the OUA.
For TMU, the Ridgebacks might not look as challenging as the Warriors, but going to Oshawa on a back-to-back against a rested team that knows how to capitalize on mistakes (thanks to the best powerplay in the league) means the pressure is on if the Bold want to build on their big win from a week ago.
MHKY: Queen's and McGill battle for critical points amid streaks
The McGill and Queen's men's hockey programs are two of the oldest and most storied in the OUA, and they're neck-in-neck so far this season, making this weekend's matchup critical for two teams jockeying for position approaching the winter break.
The Redbirds boast a 4-2-0 record, a slight advantage over Queen's mark of 4-4-1, yet the winner of Friday night's matchup jumps above the other in the OUA East standings. For McGill, however, it's about returning to the win column after two losses to Carleton and Ottawa to start November. Meanwhile, the Gaels have won three straight since losing to McGill to end October.
If there's one player the Gaels will want to keep an eye on for Friday, it's Maxime Blanchard. The Redbirds rookie scored twice in their last meeting, a 6-2 win for the Montrealers, finishing a powerplay chance for his second goal. After scoring four points in that game, he's a certain danger for whom the Gaels' defencemen should be on the lookout.
However, aside from Blanchard, the Gaels will also look to keep tabs on dynamic defenceman Scott Walford, who, despite only having one goal this season, likes to distribute across the blueline and jump up in the offence, leading to his 11 assists, the second most in OUA.
For Walford's blueliner teammates, though, they'll look to shut down Gaels leading goal-scorer Hayden Fowler, who has found a new level of form this season with four goals and seven assists through just nine games.
While it may be early to talk about playoff seeding, the first third of the OUA season is in the rearview, and in a competitive OUA East, every point is bound to be extremely valuable come the final stretch.
UPCOMING GAMES TO WATCH
WHKY: Nov. 11 - Waterloo Warriors @ TMU Bold (6:00pm ET)
MHKY: Nov. 11 - McGill Redbirds @ Queen's Gaels (7:30pm ET)
MHKY: Nov. 12 - Concordia Stingers @ UQTR Patriotes (4:00pm ET)
WHKY: Nov. 12 - Guelph Gryphons @ Toronto Varsity Blues (7:30pm ET)