The Niverville Nighthawks’ losing streak extended to three games on a Wednesday night road trip where they clashed with the Portage Terriers and came up short, falling 3–1. With the loss, the Nighthawks find themselves in fifth place in the MJHL’s East Division with a record of 55–0.
It was a tight game all the way through, and it looked like it could have gone either way. The Nighthawks actually outshot Portage 32–27 over the course of the contest.
Portage opened the scoring just two minutes into the game, but the Nighthawks replied a few minutes later with Aiden Corbett’s third tally of the season.
Portage scored twice in the second period, nine seconds apart, and that seemed to break the game open to the point where Niverville could not recover.
“The first period was good for us, as we outshot them and let them hang around, and then turnovers gave them those opportunities to score,” says Nighthawks head coach Dwight Hirst. “They just got pucks on net and kept with it. We played in spurts and didn’t play with enough battle in our game.”
Niverville’s Raiden LeGall stopped 24 shots in the loss.
Despite the rough string of losses, Hirst notes there are a lot of positives going on behind the scenes.
“The positives are that we continue to shut down other teams’ power plays and then score when we get a power play,” says Hirst. “Our special teams have been really great. Our defensive structure throughout the ice has been good too. We just got to take pucks to the net harder and get into those trenches around the net to generate second chance opportunities, because our first shots are not beating goalies clean. There are opportunities for tips, screens, and rebounds. But you got to be there to capitalize when the puck is there. When you have a tough time generating offence, you have to create second and third chance opportunities.”
The Nighthawks are back in action with a home game on Friday night against the Winnipeg Blues. The puck drops at 7:30 p.m.
