by Romano Di Franco
The Raiders faced off against the Hawkesbury Hawks and the league’s leading scorer in Luke Grainger and the league’s top rookie scoring leader Dovar Tinling and help them to just one combined point in a 3-1 loss in Hawkesbury Friday night.
Despite outshooting the Hawks after 20 minutes, the Raiders trailed 1-0 after Sean E Clarke potted his eighth of the season and the score would remain that way until the 8:54 mark of the third period when Luke Grainger got his 31st goal of the season to tie Fletcher Anderson for top spot. The Grainger goal would turn out to be the game winner as Matt McQuade and Sebastien Paquette traded goals later in the third.
Tyson Tomasini and Brandon Slawaska got the helpers on McQuade’s 17th of the season. He sits just two back of Evan Boucher for the team lead. It was his sixth point in his last four games and he extended his point streak to four games.
It was a pretty quiet second period of action with no goals and just three penalties but things got a little wilder in the third as ten penalties were issued. The Hawks went 1-for-4 on the Power Play while the Raiders went 1-for-8. The Hawks got an insurance goal by Sebastien Paquette’s short-handed goal with just under two minutes to go in the game. Hawkesbury out-shot Nepean 43-27.
Keenan Alnahas was solid in goal stopping 40 of 43 shots for a 0.930 save percentage.
The Raiders will face the Hawks one last time in the second-last game of the season at the Nepean Sportsplex Yzerman Arena.
With his goal, Matt McQuade was named the game’s third star while Matt Gasuik earned the second star with a pair of assists. Hawkesbury goalie Zach Johnson got the game’s first star stopping 26 of the 27 shots directed his way.
The Raiders next game is Sunday, February 23 when they travel to the Carleton Place to take on the Canadians for a 3:00pm puck drop.
