Blues building momentum with four straight wins and other takeaways from OUA hockey
Toronto, Ont. (via 49 Sports / Ben Steiner / Thomas Hewitt) - It doesn’t take long for the restart of the OUA hockey season to turn into a playoff hunt, and with three weeks remaining in the regular season, teams don’t have much of a buffer to make mistakes.
With the McCaw Cup and Queen’s Cup Playoffs looming in mid-February, here are four things 49 Sports learned in the latest week of OUA hockey.
WHKY: Toronto Varsity Blues put pressure on Nipissing after four straight victories
In the OUA East Division, it’s been the year of the Nipissing Lakers. The margin between them and the rest of the pack has grown for much of the season to date, but that’s starting to change.
Following two crushing losses against the East leaders in December, Toronto returned from the winter break with a vengeance. And while it isn’t rare to see the Varsity Blues knock off victory after victory in women’s hockey, they’re doing so of late with utter dominance.
Shutout wins over the York Lions and Wilfrid Laurier Golden Hawks preceded back-to-back 5-1 victories against the Waterloo Warriors and Queen’s Gaels. Yes, nine points separate the Blues and Lakers; however, the former has all the momentum with Nipissing having dropped two of their last three and slipping four spots in the U SPORTS weekly rankings.
Perhaps the most critical aspect of this winning streak for Toronto is the number of contributing players, and that’s translated to the very top of the roster, too.
Captain Taylor Trussler and Kaitlyn McKnight have both hit their respective strides, with Trussler putting in a phenomenal shift against Waterloo and being involved in all four goals.
Emma Elders, who wasn’t considered a regular contributor before the streak, burst out with four goals in the win over Queen’s. Defender Olivia Hilton is proving to be modern for her position by posting four assists during the winning run, cementing her status as a top-pairing defender.
And how could we forget goaltender Erica Fryer, who now holds a remarkable .926 save percentage? The senior has shut down opponents emphatically over the past four games.
Toronto is playing a great brand of hockey, preventing opponents from even mustering scoring chances. The Varsity Blues are playing crushing defence and have allowed just 18.75 shots per game in the winning streak.
It’s cueing up a second half of the season where the U SPORTS No. 6 can enter the McCaw Cup Playoffs as the most in-form team in the OUA.
WHKY: Mustangs and Lancers fighting for the final playoff spot in Western Conference play
Akin to its East counterpart, the OUA West currently has an outright leader: the Guelph Gryphons. But below them, the separation between places in the standings is thin.
There’s Waterloo, who leads the rest of the pack by three points. Leah Herrfort buoys the forward corps for the Warriors, and she hasn’t taken her foot off the gas since the new year. As Waterloo took down Windsor, she came up with two goals near the end to seal the victory.
Herrfort is second in OUA scoring, and her efforts have sparked Waterloo to win six of their last seven. Meanwhile, Laurier and the Western Mustangs remain in contention.
A mixed bag of results in the division means the final playoff spot, currently occupied by Western, is in jeopardy. Windsor conceded six goals to Waterloo before flipping the script against the Ontario Tech Ridgebacks with six of their own.
An ultra-narrow loss to Western a week prior has set their playoff hopes off-track, but Windsor’s next three games provide an opportunity to bounce right back. After battling with Laurier, they’ll visit the Brock Badgers and the York Lions, two lower-ranked teams.
Sophomore Keana McKibbin is leading by example on attack, scoring four goals in her last four games. Her production will be craved for the upcoming matches where the Lancers can re-enter the coveted fourth-place position.
MHKY: Brock extends winning ways with a win over UQTR
After dropping four straight games to end 2023 and start 2024, the Brock Badgers have hit their form in the second half of the OUA men’s hockey season, extending their win streak to three straight in a 3-2 shootout win over the UQTR Patriotes.
While the Patriotes lost some key players through the offseason break and have struggled since the calendar flipped to 2024, they established a strong effort against Brock before the home team turned the tides late.
UQTR went up 2-0 early in the first period, but Brock, led by head coach TJ Manastersky, found their way back into the game thanks to goals from Justin Brack and Jacob Roach, before later securing the extra point in the shootout.
Rookie netminder Connor Ungar stopped 23 shots for his league-leading 16th win of the season, building on Brock’s previous 5-1 win over the York Lions and 5-3 victory against the Guelph Gryphons.
Although a single win over a foe from the opposite division may not have massive implications on the surface, it gave the Badgers an extra boost of confidence, having taken down one of the conference’s stronger squads while playing a complete game through the latter half of the contest.
Extending their lead atop the OUA West to a five-point buffer on the second-place TMU Bold, Brock has a little bit of breathing room heading into their final six games, a stretch that starts with a clash against the Western Mustangs on Thursday night.
MHKY: The OUA East playoff picture is starting to form
Three weeks remain until the start of the OUA Queen’s Cup Playoffs, and the top six teams in the OUA East are starting to separate from the rest of the pack.
The four teams atop the standings, the UQTR Patriotes, McGill Redbirds, Concordia Stingers and uOttawa Gee-Gees, find themselves jockeying for position all within a point of each other, with the opportunity to secure a first-round bye should they finish in the top two.
Yet, seeds five and six are beginning to come into focus, with the Queen’s Gaels holding onto the final playoff spot by three points, with a game in hand on seventh-place Carleton. The Ontario Tech Ridgebacks hold the fifth seed on points. However, their points percentage of .591 drops them behind Queen’s, boasting a .625.
While the RMC Paladins and York Lions bring up the bottom of the conference and are well out of qualifying for the postseason, the focus on the Carleton Ravens looms large, as a strong start has slipped away and has them outside of the playoff picture.
So far in 2024, the Ravens have yet to secure a point, with three straight losses to Ontario Tech, Ottawa, and Concordia, respectively. In fact, the team has not won since a three-game win streak to close out the first half came to an end.
As has been the case for the last few seasons, the Ravens often rely on their top scorers, Parker AuCoin, Kieran Craig, and Nick McCarry, to carry them to success, and that trio has only found the back of the net a combined two times in the last five games.
The season is far from over, and the Ravens still have a chance to save their campaign. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to qualify for the playoffs in the OUA East, and the Ravens will need to turn things around quickly, starting with a Friday night matchup against the York Lions.
