GrayJay Sports
League News
Elks get another much needed win
The Brookfield Elks moved into a tie for the fourth and final playoff spot with the Sackville Blazers in the Fred Fox Division after a hard fought 3-2 win over the Valley Maple Leafs Wednesday night in Windsor. Both the Blazers and Elks are now 13-13-3 for 29 points with each team having one game to play. The unfortunate part for the Elks is that they are still in a must win situation Saturday against East Hants if the Leafs could put on the same type of game Friday night against Sackville and defeat them in regulation or overtime. If the Elks and Blazers both win or lose, the Elks will be on the outside looking in as they finished 2-2–2 in the regular season against Sackville while the Blazers went 4-2-0. Five of the six games were decided by a single goal and two games went to a shoot-out. The Blazers outscored the Elks 16-13 in the six games between the two clubs.
Wednesday night in Windsor, the Elks dominated the opening period but simply could not beat Eric Bilodeau in the Leafs net as he stopped all 24 shots directed at him while the Leafs managed 10. In the second period, the Leafs went up 1-0 when Tarran Baillie took a beautiful pass from Carter Graves and let a shot go from 10 feet outside the left face-off circle of the Elks. The Elks came back on an innocent enough play when Bilodeau went to clear the puck with his stick, shot the puck high but Ben Fraser was keen and quickly knocked the puck down and let a wrist shot go from 20 feet out to tie the game at 1-1. Will Stewart of the Elks rang one of the cross-bar for the Elks before Ethan Price of the Elks put his team ahead 2-1 with a 20 foot shot from just outside the left face-off circle. Despite their 2-1 lead, the Elks only outshot the Leafs 10-9 and were up 34-19 after forty minutes.
In the third period, the Leafs really began to apply the pressure outshooting the Elks 20-10, Ben McCarthy and Justin Banks were all over the Elks net and did everything humanely possible but score before the Elks Keegan MacCumber came right back to put the Elks up 3-1. With 8:21 to play in regulation, a great scramble in front of the Elks net before Brady MacLean tallied for the Leafs to pull them within a single goal. The Leafs kept applying pressure in the late stages of the game and pulled Bilodeau with 1:20 remaining before calling a time-out and then facing-off to the left of the Elks net minder Radford with 4 seconds remaining but they simply could not score the equalizer.
One thing is for sure, the Elks will be hoping the Leafs can play the same style of hockey against Sackville Friday night as they did against the Elks and potentially pull out a win and leave the Elks to clinch a playoff spot on their own on Saturday.