LONDON, Ont. – Carleton backstop Patrick Killeen put on a show Saturday afternoon, turning aside 31 shots and making a number of timely saves to help his Ravens hand the Western Mustangs their first home loss of the 2014-15 season by a score of 5-2 at Thompson Arena.
 
While, at first glance, Killeen's 31 saves on 33 shots may not sound particularly spectacular, he was single-handedly responsible for keeping momentum on Carleton's side at various points throughout the game. And as Mustangs' head coach Clarke Singer was quick to note after the game, he played a big part in keeping one of the top power plays in the OUA off the board.
 
"Carleton's an elite team in our league— they've got a great system, they've got some great penalty killers, and often times your best penalty killer is your goaltender," said Singer. "I thought we had a number of real good looks but [Killeen] was there, he collected the rebounds and was their best penalty killer I thought tonight."
 
After a Friday night that saw the Mustangs go three-for-three with the man advantage, Saturday's zero-for-six performance seemed to be one of the major reasons for Western's struggles. The closest that the Mustangs got to scoring on the power play was Stephen Gaskin's second period goal, which saw him step in from the point and rip a wrist-shot over Killeen to make the score 3-2 seconds after a Carleton player stepped out of the box.
 
"I thought that was the difference," Singer responded when asked about the importance of scoring on the power play. "If we would have been able to get a power play goal we wouldn't have had to chase the game—we were kind of chasing the game almost all night."
 
The only point in the game that the Mustangs weren't chasing was in the first frame, when Matt Marantz opened the scoring just over four minutes in with a goal in close. Marantz' chance was a result of a point-shot from Matt Paltridge— a shot that went wide and bounced off the end board to his teammate and fellow 'Matt' in front of the net.
 
But Western would end up chasing the game soon after that, and Carleton's Ryan Van Stralen and Joey West would make sure that the scoreboard would reflect that late in the period.
 
Van Stralen netted one of the more impressive goals of the night just over 15 minutes in, bumping off the Western defender on the rush to create some space and using it to rifle a shot off the crossbar and in. West followed that goal up with one of his own a minute later to give the Ravens their first lead of the afternoon and one they wouldn't relinquish for the rest of the contest.
 
Joe Pleckaitis made that lead 3-1 just over 42 seconds into the second frame, receiving a breakaway pass from teammate Sean Bamford and taking it in for the goal. More than one of the Ravens' goals came on the break in the game, something Singer wasn't happy about afterwards.
 
"You can't allow goals like that," said Singer. "We talked about it— their speed, stretching out on us— we talked about it a number of times. Just tough plays, you can't have breakdowns like that and obviously they were in the net." 
 
Although Gaskin would pull the Mustangs within one goal just over ten minutes later, the Ravens would need just a minute to respond, with Van Stralen potting his second of the day on a tip with 7:45 left in the middle frame. The only goal of the third period would be an empty netter off the stick of Corey Durocher, his third tally of the season.
 
Not only was the loss Western's first at home this season, it was the first time in eleven games that the Mustangs had failed to get at least a point. Thanks in large part to that long streak, Western entered the game ranked first in the OUA West but, although he noted that it would have been nice to get a point, Singer wasn't putting too much worth into records post-game.
 
"We're a long way from being the team I think can be, despite what our record is [and] despite how many points we have," said Singer. "So we're going to keep moving forward, we're going to keep working hard, we're not going to change the plan too much. Obviously it's a tough loss and hopefully we come back with a little bit of energy and the motors going on Monday when we practice given the score, but still a great group of kids in that room.
 
"We've got to keep working on what we're doing and we're not going to throw the baby out with the bath water per say," he added.
 
Western's next chance to get back on the winning side will come at home next week when they welcome both York and Toronto to Thompson Arena. Puck drop for Friday is set for 7 p.m. while Saturday's game will get started at 7:30 p.m. Fans can watch both live on OUA.tv.
 
Notes
 
After Steve Reese celebrated a birthday Friday it was former London Knight and first-year Mustang Jake Worrad's turn on Saturday… Western celebrated 'Rock the Rink' on Saturday afternoon in front of a full house of fans. Not even a brilliant performance from the Ravens' goaltender could put a damper on the events, as Western University president Amit Chaka stopped by to drop the ceremonial first puck and both the Mustangs' marching band—who did a stellar job for the second night in a row— and a live band helped pump up the crowd. Western's figure skating team also put on a performance during the intermission, while the Junior Mustangs took to the ice before action even got started for a game of their own.