The 100 Mile House Wranglers are coming off a tough weekend after two back-to-back losses on home ice.
The Wranglers faced off against the Grand Forks Border Bruins on Friday, Jan. 24 and the Merritt Centennials on Saturday, Jan. 25. Despite the Wranglers' best efforts they were shutout 3-0 by the Border Bruins and defeated 4-1 by the Merrit Centennials. Head coach Levi Stuart said it was a tough weekend for the team.
"Only scoring one goal (in both games) is tough. You're not going to win many hockey games if you do that," Stuart said. "Nobody in our room likes to lose, especially 2-0 and so we just have to keep the morale and energy high and going into this weekend with a positive look."
Friday night's game began with the Wranglers on the back foot after Wranglers forward Ethan Davey was slashed across the wrist by a skate in the opening minutes of the game. While Davey was ultimately bandaged up, this took him out of the game for the rest of the night. Due to a mixture of injury and sickness, Stuart said this meant his team's top four forwards were all off the ice this weekend.
"We're missing four of our top forwards and the guys who were playing were a little banged up as well," Stuart said. "You never want to make excuses, everyone's got to be able to play, but I think it would be wrong not to mention (the injuries). When you have four of your top offensive guys out it takes a toll on the lineup. Hopefully, we can get healed up sooner rather than later."
Following Davey's injury the Border Bruins capitalized on their advantage and scored the first goal of the night near the end of the first period, with the Wranglers taking several penalties throughout the first period. However, the team rallied during the second period and held the Border Bruins to one point, though proved unable to score a goal of their own. Stuart noted he and the other coaches felt they were the better team throughout the second period and all that was missing was scoring.
During the third period, however, the Border Bruins kept up a fierce pressure on the Wranglers ultimately scoring their second and third goals. The Wranglers attempted to make a comeback but were simply outshot two to one by the Bruins, who took 60 shots on net to the Wranglers' 28.
"We thought we played good on Friday. Obviously, we lost and got shutout but Grand Forks is a very strong and heavy team. They came at us hard and I thought we did a pretty good job battling against them," Stuart remarked. "It definitely took an emotional and physical toll on us."
Stuart said he believes that toll carried over to Saturday night's game against the Merritt Centennials where Merritt took a lead midway through the first period and lengthened it with another goal within seconds of the puck drop in the second. 100 Mile House Wrangler Diego Cazac was able to provide a glimmer of hope when he brought the Wranglers within a point, but a mix of penalties and more shots on the net saw them pull away with another two goals in the third period.
"All in all, a tough weekend but you gotta stay positive and look forward to these next games. This weekend is huge, we play Kamloops on Friday and Williams Lake on Sunday and those are going to be four-point nights against divisional rivals where we're fighting for that top spot in the division."
Following their Friday, Jan. 31 game against the Kamloops Storm, the Wranglers will largely be playing at home for most of February starting with their game against the Williams Lake Mustangs on Sunday. Feb. 2 at 2 p.m. If all goes well, the Wranglers will be heading into the playoffs in March.
"These last stretch of games here is really important to make sure we solidify that top spot in the division and make sure we have ice going into the playoffs."
