Muskies win but Eagles closing gap

At first glance, it would appear to be an all-too-familiar story.
The Muskie boys’ hockey team took to the ice Friday night in front of the hometown fans and promptly dispatched the Dryden Eagles 4-1 to remain undefeated in NorWOSSA play this season (8-0).
However, looks can sometimes be deceiving.
Unlike previous NorWOSSA contests from earlier in the season, in which Fort High dominated every facet of the games and cruised to easy wins, the black-and-gold were pushed to the brink by their rivals here Friday night.
The score was deadlocked 1-1 for the better part of two periods until a pair of late second-period markers gave the home team some breathing room.
“Dryden came out to play and they’ve got a good hockey team,” Muskie head coach Shane Bliss remarked. “Now that they’ve got all their bodies back, they look like a nice hockey team over there.
“It’s going to be a battle every night, I think, when we play them or any team in our league” Bliss added.
“We’re going to have to play sharp for three periods,” he stressed.
The Muskies were anything but sharp in the opening 20 minutes against Dryden. They turned the puck over repeatedly and had trouble establishing any sort of offensive rhythm.
“We got off to a little bit of a slow start again and I don’t know why tonight [Friday],” said Bliss. “I thought they [the players] seemed pretty focused before the game, they seemed like they were ready to go.”
The slow start cost the Muskies as the Eagles opened the scoring just past the midway point of the opening frame.
Defender Mike McCaig collided knee-on-knee with a Dryden forward deep in the Muskie zone—setting off a series of events that ultimately would lead to the goal.
As McCaig struggled to get himself to the bench, Eagle Shawn DeGagne stopped a Muskie clearing attempt at the blueline. DeGagne moved the puck in along the boards to teammate Kevin Trott, who then shovelled the puck deep into McCaig’s vacated corner of the ice.
Dryden forward Matt Bartlett picked up the loose puck, skated out of the corner, and wired a wrist shot past Muskie goalie David Moen high and to the glove side to give the Eagles the 1-0 lead.
The early advantage was short-lived, though, as the Muskies knotted the score at 1-1 about 90 seconds later while on the power play.
Joe Basaraba collected the rebound from Brian Glavish’s point shot as he skated past the top of the Eagle crease and then slid a deft back-hand pass to teammate Matt McLellan, who bulged the twine.
The score seemed destined to remain deadlocked through the second period but the Muskies caught a break on what appeared to be a harmless-looking play late in the period.
Taylor Jorgenson fired a shot on net from the boards that easily was turned aside by Eagle goalie Ian Selman. But the rebound found its way onto George Halverson’s stick.
Halverson made the most of the unexpected opportunity, depositing the puck into the yawning cage to give the Muskies the 2-1 lead—their first of the game.
Captain Ryan Witherspoon was credited with the second assist.
The black-and-gold got an insurance marker with less than a minute left in the second period when Glavish sprung Jorgenson and Witherspoon on a two-on-one break.
Jorgenson waited until the last possible moment, drawing both the Eagle defender and goalie to him, before feathering a perfect pass to Witherspoon, who re-directed the puck into the open cage.
The two-goal deficit appeared to deflate the visitors as the Muskies controlled play to start the third period.
After several minutes of sustained pressure, Fort High put the game away courtesy of a Mitch Green marker. Green, filling in for the injured McCaig on the blueline, took a pass from Zach McCool and floated a wrist shot towards the Eagles’ net.
The puck somehow found its way through a maze of players and behind a startled Selman, who never saw it, to give the Muskies the 4-1 lead and the eventual win.
Bliss said Green’s goal was a fitting reward for one of the team’s unsung heroes.
“We threw Mitchie back there [to cover McCaig’s absence],” Bliss explained.
“It’s nice. He doesn’t say ‘boo.’ He’d play goalie if you asked him to,” Bliss added. “He doesn’t whine or complain, and he does it well.
“He played back there last year quite a bit, I know more than he wanted to,” Bliss remarked. “I know as a forward, you hate playing back there, but when he fills in, he does a good job for us.”
The Muskies will resume NorWOSSA play with a pair of games against the Rams in Red Lake on Jan. 12-13.