The Xpertek Hockey News

Defeat spells victory for Xpertek HC
Loss keeps team from being bumped-up to higher division

Ottawa – In the end, the 4-3 defeat Xpertek HC suffered at the hands of the Capitals in Sunday night OSMHL action was a blessing in disguise.

The loss, which gave Xpertek a 4-1 record in qualifying play, kept the team from being moved up to a higher division where the older legs on the squad may have struggled to keep up.

“I guess Pat Laf saved our asses afterall,” said Marc Baril. “It’s not often that a team appreciates fluky goals against, but it turns out those two that went in early in the first were good for us.”

Baril was alluding to two bad bounces that put Xpertek HC in an early
2-0 hole.

On the first goal, netminder Pat Lafontaine left his crease to play the puck behind the net, but rather than stopping dead along the boards the puck inexplicably jumped back into the blue paint where a Capitals player, staring at 24 square feet of empty cage, shoved it in with little trouble.

On the second goal, a series of miscues high in the Xpertek zone saw the puck ricochet off at least three bodies before it began skidding in Lafontaine’s direction.

In an odd looking play, Lafontaine tried to simply shoo the puck to the corner but completely missed it. His teammates could only watch in disbelief as the puck inched its way through the five hole and beyond the goal-line to put the Caps up by two.

After the game, Lafontaine could find only one word to sum up his performance.

“Tabarnac,” he repeated over and over and over again, to no one in particular, but with enough conviction to let it be known that he was displeased with the turn of events.

Eventually, he would mellow enough to say that it “felt like l’Halloween out dere. Give, give, give. The only thing that would have made it better for dem is if maybe I dipped those pucks in chocolate and covered dem with those little multicolore sprinkles… man, those things are good, but the first two goals tonight – bad, bad, bad.”

Despite the 2-0 deficit, Xpertek would eventually claw back to tie the game.

Sniper Adam Hendriks, an out-of-nowhere favourite to capture the Bart Cross trophy as the league’s leading scorer this year, potted his fourth goal of the season after burying a Tony Lemay pass on a two-on-one rush late in the first period.

Baril would bring Xpertek back to even mid-way through the second frame with a sizzling snap shot that beat the Capitals goaltender through the wickets.

“I was aiming top shelf all the way, but my shot is shit so I hit the five-hole instead,” Baril later admitted in a refreshing moment of athletic honesty.

After the Baril marker, both teams traded chances often. Just when it appeared as though the game might be decided in a shootout, the Capitals managed to score on a broken play that sent a forward in alone to beat Lafontaine high on the glove side.

The Capitals would add an empty-netter with just under a minute left, before Marty Leroux – who with defence partner Brett Kubicek never left the ice all night – would draw Xpertek to within one with a blistering slap shot from the blueline with just 33 seconds left on the clock.

Xpertek had one last chance to tie the game with the goalie on the bench for an extra attacker, but both Lemay and Etienne Dutrisac, filling in up front while John Richardson was presumably at home with a newborn child, failed to corral a loose puck in close before time expired.

In the end, it was just as well that way.


THREE STARS

1. Pat Lafontaine – Good gaffes keep Xpertek HC in Molson Ex division
2. Martin Leroux – Stamina like a Clydesdale, played all night
3. Brett Kubicek – Plays entire game after overseas trip to check on illegitimate children, allegedly