LONDON, Ont. – A goal from Mathieu Lavallee at 1:24 of overtime led the RMC Paladins to a 2-1 win over the Western Mustangs on Friday night at Thompson Arena.
Despite controlling play for most of the game and outshooting RMC 45-25, Western had trouble beating RMC goalie Matt Murphy, who stood on his head, allowing Lavallee to win the game in the extra frame.
"We had our chances just couldn't convert. Their goalie had a great game, we knew he was gonna have a great game. I thought we did lots of great things – just couldn't score," said Mustangs head coach
Clarke Singer.
A dominant first period did not yield anything on the scoreboard for Western, despite outshooting RMC 17-9.
The Mustangs brought the pressure again in the second period, peppering shot after shot on the Paladins, but Murphy stood tall.
Finally, seven minutes into the period, the Mustangs were able to break through. Off a feed to the point from
Connor Chartier, defenceman
Jed Rusk wristed a shot through some traffic to solve Murphy and give Western a 1-0 lead.
After Western failed to capitalize for the remainder of the period, RMC took advantage as Dylan Giberson scored the equalizer just two minutes into the third period off a faceoff win to the left of goalie
Luke Peresinni.
The Mustangs managed a few good chances for the remainder of the period, including a
Trent Ouellette breakaway, but Murphy stood strong and almost singlehandedly forced the game into overtime.
Western began overtime on the powerplay, but, once again, could not score. Then, the penalized Lavallee jumped out of the box and had the puck land on his stick on a 2-on-1. Lavallee kept it, shot it, and fired it past the goalie to give the Paladins the upset win.
Despite just two goals in their last three games, Rusk didn't seem too concerned about Western's offence.
"Well, we got a lot of shots tonight and we gotta keep getting those shots on the net and hopefully they'll start going in," said Rusk.
The Mustangs will look to rebound next Friday on the road against UOIT.
