With a pair of Ontario Junior Hockey League (OJHL) match ups to come before the Christmas break, Haliburton County Huskies head coach Jordan Bailey is challenging his team to secure two more wins and extend their winning streak to seven games.
The bench boss has overseen an impressive turnaround in recent weeks – while the Huskies started the year with just two wins from nine games, they have rebounded with 15 wins, seven losses and one tie since, cementing themselves among the playoff hopefuls in the league’s East Conference.
It’s been another perfect week for the team, who rallied off an impressive 6-2 road win over the Aurora Tigers Dec. 12 before pummelling the Cobourg Cougars 8-2 in Cobourg Dec. 15. They host the Oakville Blades Dec. 18 (7 p.m. puck drop) before travelling to Lindsay to take on the Muskies Dec. 19.
Currently on a five-game winning streak, the blue and white are holding down sixth place in the standings – one point back of the Wellington Dukes with two fewer games played and three back of the Pickering Panthers in fourth and the Newmarket Hurricanes in third.
With the team potting 14 goals in its past two games, Bailey said his side is firing on all cylinders.
“It’s been a nice little stretch – we’re getting production from everyone on the team, which makes the room really happy. Everyone is getting their cookies right now, which is great, but we need to maintain our focus and not get carried away. We can’t let our highs get too high,” Bailey said.
Alternate captain Isaac Larmand stole all the headlines against the Tigers, notching his third hat-trick of the season. He opened the scoring after 70 seconds, assisted by Brody Coe and Nate Taylor, while also scoring the Huskies’ fourth and fifth goals.
Christopher Brydges also tickled the twine twice, with Julius Da Silva wrapping the scoring late in the third. Taylor had three assists, Coe and Ryan Gosse had two, with Nic Ferrante, Carter Petrie, Ronen Macfarlane, Kaiden Thatcher and Josh Denes all chipping in with one.
After Larmand followed up with three more points, this time all assists, in the Cobourg rout on Monday, Bailey said he’s happy for the 19-year-old, who has taken an offensive step in his third year with the Huskies.
“He’s always been a very good leader in the room and now he’s getting rewarded after putting in the work to improve. It’s been nice to see him getting more and more confident – any time you have a player and character of that calibre, who is predominantly a team-first guy getting some individual stats, you feel really happy for them,” Bailey said.
The game against the Cougars was competitive for about three minutes – Coe scored at 1:13, Taylor added a second at 1:47 and Mike Mardula made it a three-goal game at 3:03. Brydges and Gosse added some more gloss to the scoreline, scoring at 12:20 and 19:19 of the opening frame.
Gosse and Petrie scored the team’s sixth and seventh goals, either side of Cobourg’s two tallies in the second period, with Lewis Hergaarden finishing the scoring 43 seconds into the final frame. The Huskies powerplay was potent throughout, scoring in four-out-of-six opportunities.
“Guys are just understanding the league a little more now. The message has stayed the same – we want to play north and fast, keeping pressure in the offensive zone and getting pucks on net. The guys have all been delivering on our systems really well,” Bailey said.
With back-to-back games against Oakville and Lindsay coming up and two more before the new year – the Huskies host the Mississauga Chargers Dec. 29 (7 p.m. puck drop) and Lindsay again Dec. 31 (2 p.m. puck drop) – Bailey said his team needs to take things one match-up at a time.
“What happened last game is done with. We have to move on to the next one and make sure we’re not being cocky and sticking to our plan,” the coach said. “We’re looking at the standings and everyone is in the mix, we’ve got to keep winning hockey games and put ourselves in as good a position as possible for the new year.”
