Dan Falloon
It wasn’t the start to the season that any members of the Muskie girls’ hockey team had envisioned.
And yet a season-opening 3-2 loss to the Red Lake Rams became reality at the Ice For Kids Arena here Saturday night.
The Muskies (0-1) fell behind early at the Rams (1-0-1) tallied three-straight goals in the first period.
Fort High battled back with a pair before the first intermission, but the team was unable to muster the equalizer the rest of the way.
Moments before the Rams’ opening goal, the Muskies had an excellent scoring chance of their own when Taylor Dixon took a drop pass from Jillian Langtry but her shot for the top corner was denied.
Danielle Jean’s shot from the left circle beat the Rams’ goalie to pull Fort High to within 3-1.
Langtry then tallied minutes later, taking a centering pass from Shae-lynn Smith and roofing a shot off the crossbar and in.
The Muskies had a couple of chances to notch the equalizer in the second period, when Fort High carried the play.
Alyssa Penner’s quick shot off of Ericka Tymkin’s centering pass caromed just off the side of the net while Smith’s deflection of a Shelby Rea shot was gloved down.
The third period also was scoreless.
Head coach Mel Langtry wasn’t pleased with the game overall. He credited the Rams for their effort, but pointed out areas of improvement for his squad.
“We weren’t skating. That’s what it boils down to,” he noted. “They wanted it more than we did.
“In the first period, they got a couple of rebound goals that shouldn’t have been,” Langtry added.
“We should have been there clearing it out and we weren’t, and that’s what happens.”
After a back-and-forth first period, the Muskies started to take a grip on the game in the second, playing much of the frame in the Rams’ end.
But they were unable to score, with Langtry saying his players just didn’t go to the net enough.
“The shots we were getting weren’t quality shots,” he observed. “They kept us to the outside quite a bit.
“They had a very big goalie, so I think we had to go upstairs,” he added.
“She went down right off the bat. We were getting the low ones, but we weren’t getting to the rebounds, either.”
The quality of shots wasn’t just affected by location, but by speed, too.
Langtry felt several shots were released either far too late to be effective—if they were released at all.
“We were trying to get a little too individual a little bit too much,” he remarked.
“We have to start moving the puck and getting quick shots.
“We’ll move the puck, and it’ll take them two or three seconds before they release the shot. By that time, the girls are already on them,” he stressed.
Other areas of concern for the team were getting the puck out of their zone, increasing their passing accuracy, and winning the battles along the boards.
Langtry thinks some of the preparation must be mental.
“It takes them to start getting focused the whole game day, not just five minutes before, and some weren’t focused at all,” he noted.
The Rams aren’t the only NorWOSSA ‘A’ team to make some noise so far as St. Thomas Aquinas (Kenora) finished second at the Muskies’ home tournament last month—the highest of any NorWOSSA team.
With the rise of the ‘A’ division squads, Langtry knows none of the NorWOSSA games are going to be free spaces on the Muskies’ schedule and hopes his charges picked up that message loud and clear.
“No game is going to be a gimme,” he stressed. “That’s what I was telling the girls. We’ve got to be up for every game, no matter what.
“Maybe the girls thought they’d take this a little bit too lightly, and that’s what happens.
“We should have came out with all guns firing.”
In all, Langtry didn’t see much in terms of individual positives from Saturday’s game as he kept an eye on the team as a whole rather than on any single player.
“I wasn’t focused too much on any one player,” he said. “I thought as a team, we didn’t pull together, and we have to.
“It’s a team sport, and when you don’t have some of your big guns moving, it trickles down.”
Langtry also noted that with Shelby Tymkin out, the Muskies were running shorthanded up front.
“We were rotating a couple centres and they were getting awful tired out there,” he remarked.
Tymkin was set to resume practising this week, but was not set to play in Kenora last night.
Kenora opened their NorWOSSA season with a 7-0 pasting of the Dryden Eagles over the weekend.
The Muskies will be back on home ice next Tuesday night (Nov. 23) when Dryden comes to town for a 7:15 p.m. start.
Meanwhile, the Muskie boys will kick off their NorWOSSA schedule against the Eagles that same night in Dryden.
Their first home action of the season comes Dec. 7 when the Eagles visit the Ice For Kids Arena.
