The Halifax Thunderbirds defeat the New York Riptide 13-10 in the FirstOntario Centre in Hamilton, Ont. Friday night.
This was a home game for Halifax, but they played in Hamilton because Covid restrictions in Nova Scotia prevent games at any level to be played.
“Everyone is comfortable with each other, it makes playing in random environments pretty easy,” said Halifax forward Kyle Jackson. “Whether it is an away game, a home game, a home game that’s not even in our actual home, I think it’s the guys on the team that make all that transition a little bit easier.”
The FirstOntario Centre in Hamilton is the regular home of the Toronto Rock, but Halifax will also call it home next week against the Philadelphia Wings. The earliest the team can return to Halifax is Feb. 19 against the Georgia Swarm.
“Obviously, it’s not ideal, we want to be in the nest (nickname for the Scotiabank Centre in Halifax) playing in front of our fans,” says Jackson. “If there were no fans we would still prefer to be in the nest where we feel most comfortable… Overall, everyone has been awesome to us here in Hamilton, allowing us to even just play here is a huge asset for us. Being able to play games right now when we’ve been behind the eight ball the past couple of weeks trying to make up games has been nice.”
Connor Kearnan opened the scoring for New York. On the power play, Callum Crawford had the ball on the right side and made a no-look pass to Kearnan in the slot. Kearnan scored his 18th of the season.
Cody Jamieson answered for Halifax. He fired a shot from the top of the arch on the power play to score his first of the season in his third game.
Austin Shanks scored two goals and Eric Fanell added another to give Halifax a 4-1 lead at the end of the first quarter.
The Thunderbirds only scored one goal in the first half last week against Albany. They were looking for a strong start in this game.
“We had four goals in that first quarter and our offensive goal is to have four goals a quarter, so it’s nice to hit that quota,” said Jackson. “That four goals a quarter is our objective, when we hit that it means everyone is contributing.”
No one scored for the first seven minutes of the scored quarter. But an avalanche of goals came after the Riptide’s Mackenzie Mitchell was given a five-minute major penalty for body checking.
Kyle Jackson scored on the power play from the left side. That was his first goal this season after going goalless but adding seven assists in his first three games. The lack of goals caused him to be scratched in the team’s last game against Albany.
“The breakout game for me was scoring one goal, so it makes it pretty easy to have a breakout game on my end when you have zero goals on the season,” says Jackson.
Jackson scored two goals and added an assist for three points. He also grabbed seven loose balls and fired nine shots on goal.
“I felt especially in this game, the spots I wanted to get to I was able to get to. I wasn’t just shooting the ball from what’s called the restraining line hoping for a prayer. I think the majority of my shots were high quality chances and getting to the right spot on the floor. It just happened that in this game I was finally able to score.”
Stephan Leblanc added to Halifax’s lead from the left side a minute later.
The Riptide’s high-powered offence came roaring back. Damon Edwards scored shorthanded between Jackson and Leblanc’s goals. Callum Crawford scored two, and Tyson Gibson and Scott Dominey also scored to cap a five goal quarter for the Riptide.
“They’re a very streaky team, they have lots of weapons offensively and guys on defence that can carry the ball, so it was a little combination of that,” said defender Jake Withers. “It’s definitely a game of runs, especially against a young and hungry team like that.”
Eight goals were scored in the last nine minutes of the second quarter. Halifax was up 7-6 at the end.
Crawford tied the game quickly into the third quarter for the Riptide. On the power play, he shot the ball between two defenders at the top of the arch and scored.
Jackson broke the deadlock. Graeme Hossack set a pick for Jackson who ran in front of the goal to score.
Hossack added a goal of his own to give Halifax a 9-7 lead going into the final quarter.
Halifax had a strong start to the fourth, outscoring New York 3-1 in the first seven minutes to give them a 12-8 lead.
New York didn’t go away. Halifax’s Eric Fannell was handed a five minute major for boarding putting the Riptide on the power play.
Callum Crawford and Kieran McArdle scored on the power play to bring the Riptide within two.
Halifax has struggled on the penalty kill, having the second worst percentage in the league at 47.8 per cent coming into the game. They had to go up against the league’s second best power play in this game and only killed one out of five penalties.
“We have to clean up some of the special team areas, the transition and penalty kill,” said Withers. “That will come, it’s tough. Every team is so good and every team is so young nowadays that it’s tough to put too much of a damper on teams that will run and teams that have so many skilled players when we’re a man down. But it is an area of improvement for us.”
Halifax rookie defender Ryan Terefenko scooped up the ball in the final minutes to score his first NLL goal on an empty net to seal the win for Halifax. He played excellent tonight, at some points being the primary defender on Jeff Teat. Him, Withers and the defence limited Teat to three assists.
Austin Shanks led the Thunderbirds in points for the third consecutive game with 2 goals and five assists. The league’s second leading scorer, Callum Crawford, scored four goals and added three assists to lead the Riptide in scoring.
Warren Hill stopped 38 of 48 shots for Halifax and New York’s Steven Orleman stopped 48 out of 60 shots.
The Thunderbirds are back at “home” in Hamilton next Sunday when they take on the Philadelphia Wings.
