Blues flying high in West Division and other takeaways from OUA hockey
Toronto, Ont. (via 49 Sports, Ben Steiner, Richard Coffey) – While the OUA fall seasons continue to wind down, the hockey seasons are approaching the midway point of their campaign, with several teams proving themselves as early-season contenders amidst recent hot streaks.
With the latest batch of OUA hockey featuring surprising results and hot goaltending performances, there was plenty to take on in this week’s roundup.
MHKY: Toronto Varsity Blues rising in close games
The Toronto Varsity Blues found themselves back in the weekly U SPORTS top-10 rankings this week after pulling off an upset 2-1 victory over the UQTR Patriotes, who had recently rediscovered their goal-scoring swagger.
UQTR, coming off an 11-5 win against the McGill Redbirds, struggled to secure that same offensive output in their weekend matchup, as the Varsity Blues held them to 34 shots, hovering around the OUA average for shots per game.
Meanwhile, the Blues grabbed late goals with five seconds remaining in the second period and less than two minutes in the game to win the rare intra-divisional matchup.
UQTR scored first, as Zach Gravel beat Toronto’s Jett Alexander just past the midway mark of the second, only for Billy Moskal and Cole Purboo to net two unanswered goals against the Patriotes’ Alexis Gravel, leading Toronto to the victory.
Alexander made 33 saves in the effort, leading Toronto to their fifth straight win, building off a mid-week school day victory over the host York Lions.
Through their run, the Blues have maintained the second-best penalty kill in the OUA, clicking along at 93.5 percent, having only conceded three times on 46 shorthanded opportunities.
Although Toronto has had worrying moments this season, with somewhat flat efforts in losses to the Concordia Stingers and Lakehead Thunderwolves, head coach Ryan Medel’s team has been one of the hottest in the province of late, helping them rise the ranks in the OUA West.
Toronto currently sits second in the division, trailing only Brock’s lofty record of 11-1-0. As they try to gain more ground on the division-leading Badgers, the focus for Toronto turns to this weekend’s matchups against the Guelph Gryphons and that tough St. Catharines squad.
WHKY: Martina Fedel carrying Gryphons to top spot in the west
There’s a new top team in the OUA West Division this week, thanks in no small part to the new top goalie in the OUA, Martina Fedel.
With a 20-6-1 record across two OUA seasons heading into 2023-24, Fedel was already one of the more successful netminders in the conference, but across the first month and change of the new season, she has taken things to another level. Fedel leads the division in wins with six, has the lowest goals-against average at 0.72, and the league’s highest save percentage at .968, ten percent higher than Acadia Carlson in second.
Fedel’s save percentage through her first eight games is so high that if the season were to end today, it would be the highest save percentage in OUA history since Liz Knox put up a .960 mark for Laurier in 2009-10.
The impressive start continued this past weekend as Fedel followed a 4-0 shutout of the York Lions on November 4th, with back-to-back 1-0 shutouts of the Toronto Varsity Blues and Waterloo Warriors. Including their November 3rd win over the Brock Badgers, the Gryphons have now won four straight games and flipped with the Laurier Golden Hawks for the top spot in the OUA West.
The Gryphons will try to continue their perfect November on Wednesday with a rematch at the Gryphon Centre against the Warriors before a pivotal matchup sees the Golden Hawks make the trip to Guelph on Friday.
With two games in November against Laurier, the team that it looks like they’ll be fighting for the top spot in the division against, getting the tiebreaker for potential playoff scenarios under control would be a significant advantage heading into the winter.
WHKY: Nipissing continues to roll over the rest of the OUA East
The Lakers have hit the OUA East like a tsunami this season. Pardon the terrible pun, but it’s true.
After back-to-back losses in the McCaw Cup Championship, the Lakers opened the season on a revenge tour, and after a 6-1 loss to Guelph on October 21 made them 2-1-0, they’ve proceeded to rattle off six straight wins and get a tight grip on the OUA East. Seven wins have come in the division, helping the Lakers stretch out their currently nine point lead.
The Lakers added to their win streak this past weekend against TMU, as they made the trip to Mattamy Athletic Centre to take on the struggling Bold. It was Nipissing vs Lauren Griffin in the first game on November 10th, as the Lakers outshot the Bold 48-18 but only got one goal by Griffin before winning 2-1 in a shootout.
Things got a little easier in the second game as the Lakers bookended one TMU second-period goal with four of their own, two in the second and two in the third, to ultimately pick up a 4-1 win.
It has been both ends of the ice that have carried things for the Lakers. Chantelle Sandquist leads the OUA with eight wins and holds a top-10 goals-against average and save percentage. Offensively, three Lakers sit in the top five of league scoring, led by Maggie McKee, who sits tied for first with 12 points in nine games.
The Lakers look to add to their already sizable lead on the division over the Toronto Varsity Blues in the upcoming weekend as they host a pair of struggling teams in the Western Mustangs and Windsor Lancers, who sit in fifth and sixth in the West, respectively.
With those two games followed by a pair of road games at Western and Windsor before Nipissing’s end-of-first-semester battle against second-place Toronto on December 2nd and 3rd, the Lakers could put a large gap between themselves and the rest of the pack before the fall semester is out.
MHKY: Western Mustangs struggle after first win
The Western Mustangs finally got themselves a win in the 2023-24 OUA season after starting their campaign without a victory through the first eight games. Despite getting the monkey off their back, however, the team has continued to struggle.
The Mustangs beat a strong Lakehead Thunderwolves team by a 4-1 final two weeks ago, with goals from Josh LeBlanc, Shane Bulitka, Jack Tucker, and Andrew Bruder. Despite prevailing in that intimidating environment at the home of the Thunderwolves, however, they’ve been unable to build from that positive result, having followed it up with a 6-1 loss to the Stingers and a 9-0 loss to the Ontario Tech Ridgebacks.
Overall, head coach Clarke Singer’s team is struggling to keep scores tight and competitive as the season reaches the middle mark of the campaign.
Still, there was a positive start in the first period against Concordia, as the London squad tallied the opening goal, but the group couldn’t maintain that early momentum en route to the eventual five-goal loss.
"I thought we carried the momentum over from our Lakehead weekend,” head coach Clarke Singer said to Western Athletics post-game. “[We] had a really good first period, but after that, Concordia was much better than us in all areas.”
With six games remaining before the holiday break, stringing together a few more positive moments and results will be vital for the Mustangs if they wish to fight for meaningful games through to the later stages of the season.
