THUNDER BAY – SPORTS – The Lakehead Thunderwolves will travel to St. Catharines for a pair of games with the division-leading Brock Badgers this weekend, with game times of 7:15 pm Friday night followed by a Saturday matinee with a 2:15 pm puck drop.
The Matchup
Lakehead: 10-11-1 OUA (5th place West Division) 16-12-1 overall
Brock: 15-5-2 OUA (1st place West Division) 17-8-2 overall
Recent Results
Lakehead is coming off a tough weekend at home where the Wolves dropped two games to the Laurier Golden Hawks by scores of 5-2 on both nights.
The Badgers played just one game last week, a 2-1 overtime loss to the Toronto Varsity Blues in St. Catharines on Saturday.
Series History
The Thunderwolves have dominated the head-to-head series between the two programs with an all-time record of 29-11-2 versus the Badgers.
Lakehead and Brock last met in November 2017 at the Fort William Gardens, with the Wolves sweeping the weekend series by defeating the Badgers by margins of 3-2 (in overtime) and 3-0.
Tightly Packed
With just six games to go in the regular season, Brock and Ryerson sit atop the ten-team OUA West Division with 32 points each.
After that, the race gets pretty tight with only seven points separating third-place Western (27 points) and last-place Toronto (20 points).
Lakehead is sandwiched in between in a four-way tie for fifth place along with Laurier, Guelph and Waterloo with 21 points each.
By the end of this weekend, Lakehead could potentially move up to as high as fourth place or drop down to as low as tenth. The top eight teams in the division qualify for the playoffs.
About the Badgers
Brock’s success can be attributed to its overall team defence as the Badgers have allowed just 48 goals against in conference play, compared with 83 for Lakehead.
Freshman netminder Logan Thompson has been a big reason for that. So far this season he’s posted a save percentage of .936 (second best in the division), a goals-against average of 2.20 (third best) and recorded three shutouts (tied for most in the division).
Former Lakehead defenceman Jake Ringuette, who transferred to Brock during the off-season to be closer to his family, is one of the Badgers’ top blue-liners along with Dexter Weber and Skylar Pacheco.
Ryan Burton and Connor Brown lead the Badgers in scoring, with Adam Berg and Ayden MacDonald not far behind.
