Two wins this week for the Aurora Tigers

The Aurora Tigers defeated two division rivals this week, bringing their record to 9-6-0-1 on the year. 

In a Remembrance Day thriller at the Aurora Community Centre, the Tigers put on a class display. In front of Mayor Tom Mrakas, the club invited a few local veterans to come and drop the puck in front of Tigers captain Luc Reeve and Collingwood Blues assistant captain Cole Hipkin. 

In front of a comfortable crowd and with special Remembrance Day jerseys for the afternoon bout, it was the home team that got on the board first. 

Thanks to some excellent forechecking by the Tigers, William Smith's shot from the point found its way past Noah Pak to make it 1-0. 

Just 18 seconds in the second period, the Tigers caught the Blues sleeping at the wheel. Connor Van Weelie stormed into the zone and found his captain Luc Reeve all alone in the slot. Reeve sniped his sixth goal of the season to make it 2-0. 

“We noticed they dump the puck a lot. So, every time that we have an opportunity to turn it right back we did. Got it deep and went hard on their defence. They're big. They're slow. We used our speed around them and that's how we caught them sleeping in the second,” Reeve said after the game.

Towards the tail-end of the period, the Blues caught the Tigers off guard. Owen Johnston forced a turnover at the blue line while on the penalty kill and found a way to put it past Tigers netminder Nolan Boyd shorthanded to give the Blues some life heading into the third.

In a tactical final period, with just over six minutes left to play, Justin Biraben's check from behind on Blues defenseman Ethan Broderick earned him a five-minute major and a game misconduct. 

On the power play, Owen Sage got the Blues their second and game tying goal. With momentum, the Blues pushed for the game winner but some heroics from newly acquired goaltender Boyd, kept the Tigers alive. The game went to overtime. 

With the first four on four overtime solving nothing it was up to the three-on-three overtime to work its magic and that it did. 

Stouffville native Lee Chiang found himself all alone in front of Pak and the forward knotted home his ninth goal of the season and this game's winner.

With the Tigers improving their record to 4-3-0-1 at home this was a point of emphasis prior to this game. 

“We talked about that as a team. We figured we need to make it hard for people to come in into our barn. The last three games showed it. You're not coming in here and taking you softly,” Reeve said. 

Since coming into the squad, in four games played this is Boyd's fourth win, giving him a 4-0 record as a Tiger thus far. With him and Christian Filippetti, having two stud goaltenders is a good problem to have.

“When you have an individual, we think highly of in Sylvain Couturier out in the Q down east telling us about Nolan and then he was available. When a goalie like that comes available with his history and his pedigree we were fortunate enough to get him,” said head coach Greg Johnston. 

“It gives you a confidence when your goalies make those saves and quite frankly bails us out a few times. When you got a guy back there and Fili does it too. When you got the goalies, we had it gives us more confidence. We got two, 20-year-olds battling for the net.” 

It was also the first game for Aren Sirmakesyan who the Tigers acquired from the Toronto Jr. Canadiens. Johnston was also impressed with him.

In the second game of the week, the Tigers took care of the Markham Royals on the road 4-1.

Boyd stopped 21 of 22 shots in the win. 

This week, the Tigers have a three-in-three. On Friday night the boys host the Georgetown Raiders and will host the Oakville Blades Saturday night. On Sunday, the boys will head out east to take on the Pickering Panthers. 

Puck drop Friday and Saturday night is at 7:30 p.m. 

By Robert Belardi