Cats move to 6-0 in the NHC

The Northview icers moved to 6-0 (22-3-1 overall) and first place in the NHC with 2 nail biting overtime victories over St. Francis and St. Johns. With 4 league games left the cats have a strangle hold on what could be their first league title since the Doug Carter led 1987 squad.
On Friday the cats hosted St. Francis with first place on the line. Both teams came in with 8 points in the NHC Red with the Knights having played 1 more game than Northview. Northview jumped out to a 3-0 lead midway through the game on goals by Tyler Cook, Adam Thanasiu and a short-handed effort by Alden Hirschfeld. However the cats were whistled for a couple of penalties late in the 2nd that opened the door for the Knights. With just 21 seconds left in the period a knuckling shot found its way past Bobby McElheney to cut the lead to 3-1 after 2 periods of play. The cats played one of their most undisciplined periods of hockey all year in the 3rd. They were called for a couple more selfish penalties and played some unsound defensive hockey in allowing the Knights to not only tie the game at 3-3, but finish the game with back-to-back power plays. However near the end of regulation Hirschfeld was hauled down to give the cats a power play chance of their own in overtime. Cody Bourland didn’t waste much time as he took a pass from Erik Lavoy, who made a great play, to give the cats a 4-3-overtime victory.
On Saturday evening the wildcats played St. Johns. The Titans came in very hot having knocked off Findlay the night before 8-0 down in the house of pain. The emotions ran high as many predicted a possible win for the Titans. Through 2 ½ periods of play it looked as if that prediction would come true as St. Johns led 2-0. The secret weapon was an unlikely hero in Thomas Monteith. He would not be denied as his hard work paid off with a blue-collar type goal to cut the lead to 2-1. With the new found energy from the goal and the capacity crowd the cats would draw even on a blast from M. Cook just a few minutes later. The overtime began with the cats on the power play due to a very undisciplined penalty from the Titans, who had up to that point played an almost error free game. The cats wasted little time as Hirschfeld picked up a loose puck in front of the Titan net to send the crowd into hysterics and the cats to victory. Bobby McElheney picked up both wins to improve his record to 13-0 on the season. As important as the wins were for the league were the lessons learned from the hard fought games. All of the players and the coaches know that nothing will come easy and if they want to accomplish the goals of the team they will have to work even harder than they have to this point. Congratulations cats on a great weekend.

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