The Hamilton Kilty B’s defeated the Fort Erie Meteors 5-3 at home on Thursday night at the Dave Andreychuk Mountain Arena.
The first period started out fast paced with the Meteors looking like formidable foes early. Then, the tide started to shift in Hamilton’s favour. Carson Lloyd got a hold of the puck from Justin Monteith and threw a shot through traffic, banking off a Fort Erie defender and into the back of the net for the opening goal. Monteith recorded his twenty-fifth assist of the season on the play.
Later in the frame, the B’s went on the powerplay after the Meteors took a minor penalty for interference. Noah Vandenbrink scored on a shot from a sharp angle beating the Meteors netminder to take a 2-0 lead. Vandenbrink has 14 goals and 14 assists having played 21 games.
In the second period, Torin Hession broke his stick on the defensive zone draw and had to grab one quickly from the bench. As the play went on, Hession ended up back with the puck and fed Dawson McKinney for a goal with his teammate’s stick.
The B’s then went up 4-0 on a short-handed goal by Ryan Woodburn, assisted by none other than Dawson McKinney for his third of four points on the day. McKinney is now up to 53 points on the year.
Fort Erie started to mount a comeback with their first goal coming from Liam Loftus late in the second period.
In the third, Fort Erie drew within one by scoring back-back goals to make it 4-3.
The Kilty B’s held on for dear life after that, somehow keeping the puck out of their net on many desperate attempts by the Meteors attackers.
With 30 seconds left, Dawson McKinney knocked down the puck deep in his own zone and took a ‘Hail Mary’ shot at the empty net and nailed it, to secure the victory.
David Egorov stopped 40 of 43 shots to record his fifteenth win of the season in just eighteen starts.
With this win, the B’s move to (33-6-5) on the year and remain in second in the Golden Horseshoe Conference with just six regular season games remaining.
Hamilton plays their next game on Thursday, February 16 at 7 p.m. against the Pelham Panthers at the Dave Andreychuk Mountain Arena.
The Kilty B’s also have a special home game coming up on Thursday, February 23 against Caledonia. It is Hamilton’s BRAVE LIKE BEAU Fundraiser game. Beau is fighting SMA-type 2 and there will be a number of fundraising opportunities to help him and his family during this tough time. Admission to the game is $10 and 50% of all ticket sales and the ‘50/50’ draw will go to the O’Hagan Family.
There will also be special warm-up jerseys that will be auctioned and raffled off to raise money. Puck drop is at 7 p.m.
-Jarrett Matthews
