The Xpertek Hockey News

Xpertek HC win streak stops at three
Surging squad manages only a tie against inferior Trash

Ottawa – It could have been reversal of fortune night at the Fred Barrett Arena Sunday evening, as team Trash almost took out the garbage that was the Xpertek HC performance, but ultimately had to settle for a 2-2 tie with the division leaders.

From the very first puck drop, Xpertek looked sluggish, often struggling to string together two passes in a row. Even when Xpertek did manage to pick up the pace, the team was ‘All-Swedish, No-Finnish’ from in close, missing on a multitude of scoring chances that could have put the game out of reach early on.

Instead, team Trash took it to the slow-to-show Xpertek HC, and even held a 2-0 lead going into the second period.

“Tabaslac, we had a lot of chances,” said defenceman Brett Kubicek after the game, trying out the French derivative of tabarnac for the first time, eager to see if he could pull it off in a sentence.

“From my perch on the blueline, I saw at least a half-dozen tabaslackan shots that could have beaten the tabaslackan goalie, but he made some tabaslackan nice saves to keep them in it,” he added, taking his usage of the more polite incarnation of the popular swearword just a little too far.

While for awhile it looked as though team Trash might walk away with the victory, most on press row knew it was only a matter of time before the sleeping giant that is the Xpertek HC offence would come to life.

Right on cue, Etienne Dutrisac – a scoring revelation early in this OSMHL season – buried a Tony Lemay rebound to cut the Trash lead to 2-1.

Later in the period, Dutrisac again factored in on the scoring when he cleverly tipped a Marc Baril face-off win back to point-man Pierre Bouwhuis, whose seeing-eye shot found its way through a maze in front to stretch the mesh in the back of the net.

With the assist, Dutrisac moved into a tie for second in league scoring behind teammate Tony Lemay.

“I’d be first if Baril and Lemay hadn’t slowed me down all night,” Dutrisac said, post-game.

Still standing high atop the division standings, Xpertek HC next takes to the ice on Wednesday, December 3, in another dreaded 11 p.m. start.

THREE STARS

1. Etienne Dutrisac -- Xpertek HC's very own Mark Streit, fills it admirably at forward
2. Pierre Bouwhuis -- Leans in hard on heavy shot to send the game to a shootout
3. Tony Lemay -- Buzzed around the net all night, unfreazable shot creates rebound for first Xpertek goal