Powerplay woes continue to hurt Admirals

Amherstburg goalie Landon Dimitroff reaches for the puck during Saturday night’s game.

An unproductive powerplay continues to hamper the Amherstburg Admirals.

The Admirals were doubled 4-2 by the Lakeshore Canadiens Saturday night at the Libro Centre in a game that saw Amherstburg go 0-for-4 with the man advantage.

With the setback, Amherstburg now has a 12-17-3-0 record in the Provincial Junior Hockey League (Jr. C) West Stobbs Division.

“The powerplay is killing us. I think guys get to a game and they panic. If you look at our lineup, we only have two or three guys with 10 or more goals. We are not going to score the fancy goals, it’s frustrating,” said Admirals’ head coach Zack Gervais.

Stefan Djordjevic leads the way now with 14 tallies on the year and captain Drew Booker has 10.

In the last five games, Amherstburg has converted just 1-of-19 on the powerplay. Saturday night with the score deadlocked 2-2, they had a couple of opportunities with the extra man but couldn’t get the puck past Canadiens’ goalie Hunter Welk.

Lakeshore won 4-2. The Admirals celebrate celebrate a second-period goal by Brady Drouillard against the Canadiens.

Lakeshore took an early 1-0 lead on a goal that caught Amherstburg netminder Landon Dimitroff off-guard in the first period but the Admirals quickly responded in the middle frame. Djordjevic let go with a laser of a shot just 1:05 in and Brady Drouillard scored 1:10 later.

“That second period we played great. We were physical and it shifted the momentum in our favour. In the third period we were a little flat,” noted Gervais.

The Canadiens, who along with the Essex 73’s are ranked in the Top 5 of the PJHL, turned it up in the final 20 minutes and it was Kyle Greene who got the game winner.

To their credit, the Admirals attacked the offensive zone and moved the puck quickly and with precision most of the night, but Gervais emphasized after the loss that it has to be a full-out effort the entire 60 minutes.

“Offensively, we played pretty well. We just stopped forechecking, that was the killer.”

The Admirals travelled to Essex Tuesday night after this issue of the River Town Times went to press. They are in Harrow Thursday at 7:30 p.m. for a game against the Blenheim Blades and this coming Saturday, their fourth game in eight days, the Admirals host Dresden at the Libro Centre. The game against Dresden is also at 7:30 p.m.

“We’ve shown against those top teams, Essex, Lakeshore and Blenheim that you have to play all the way through. Between those top three teams, they play hard shift-after-shift,” said Gervais.

Rookie goalie Dimitroff continues to be a bright spot for the Admirals as he made 32 saves including 15 in the second period. Welk was less busy, turning away 18.

SLAPSHOTS: Djordjevic and veteran defenceman Jake Goudreault played in the All-Star game last Sunday… Amherstburg held a special pre-game ceremony on Saturday to honour First Responders.

Powerplay woes continue to hurt Admirals

By Fred Groves