{"id":15988,"date":"2016-12-07T12:59:53","date_gmt":"2016-12-07T17:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=15988"},"modified":"2016-12-14T12:11:15","modified_gmt":"2016-12-14T17:11:15","slug":"panthers-special-team-sinks-tigers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/panthers-special-team-sinks-tigers\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers\u2019 special team sinks Tigers"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n

A handful of failed penalty kills led to the Aurora Tigers demise Sunday night in a 5 \u2013 1 loss to the Pickering Panthers.
\nA week of rest was nothing but detrimental to the Junior A club\u2019s special teams, who gave up three powerplay goals to the OJHL\u2019s North East Conference\u2019s last place team.
\nPickering scored the only goal of the first period, banging in a rebound past Jake Sabourin midway through the frame just seconds after a powerplay came to an end.
\nThey doubled the lead early in the second, sending home another rebound to make it 2 \u2013 1.
\nIt was 3 \u2013 0 for Pickering before the Tigers broke the shutout thirteen minutes into the second period, with Eric Holland finishing a nifty setup from team-leading scorer Mel Melconian.
\nMelconian intercepted a Pickering blue line pass, going in on a two-on-one before sending a floating pass across the crease to the waiting Holland.
\nBut with Kyle Berry in the box for head contact late in the period, Pickering took a 4 \u2013 1 lead into intermission.
\nThey added one more midway through the third, in the midst of a string of penalties for the Tigers, when a heavy shot from the point found its way through traffic and by Sabourin.
\n\u201cA tough loss for the Tigers, in their first game of December,\u201d said Aurora announcer Asher Roth, who called the game. \u201cAgainst a team like the Panthers, it\u2019s one they would like to have.\u201d
\nThe lone bright spot was the consistent play of Melconian and Holland, who have been paired together on the Tigers\u2019 top line all season. Both lead the team in scoring by a considerable margin, combining for 55 points through 57 games played this season.
\nWith just over twenty games left on the schedule, the Tigers are left with plenty of work to do if there is any hope of playoffs. The loss to the Panthers has the two teams battling it out for last place in the North East Conference, currently tied at fourteen points apiece and five back of the Lindsay Muskies.
\nThey are eleven back of the eighth-place Newmarket Hurricanes, who hold on to the last playoff spot.
\nFollowing another long rest of five days, Aurora plays three games in a row this weekend starting with a home tilt against the Muskies (8-18-0-3) on Saturday.
\nPuck drop is at 7:30 p.m. at the Aurora Community Centre.
\nThe Markham Royals (20-9-0-1) are in town on Sunday, before the Tigers hit the road on Monday to take on the Cobourg Cougars (23-7-0-1).
\nFor stats, schedules, and more information, visit www.auroratigers.pointstreaksites.com.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A handful of failed penalty kills led to the Aurora Tigers demise Sunday night in a 5 \u2013 1 loss to the Pickering Panthers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15989,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[24,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-sports","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/2016-12-08-01.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-49S","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-26 05:09:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}