Jefferson Hagen
MacEwan Athletics
EDMONTON – Not many teams are going to find success when they only manage to put 12 shots on net in a 60-minute hockey game.
The Griffins women's hockey team is no exception as they failed to score in a 3-0 loss to the Trinity Western Spartans on Saturday at the Downtown Community Arena – the fifth time they've been shut out this season.
"I just think we've got to identify opportunities to put pucks on net and have a little bit more urgency with our offensive attack mindset," said Griffins head coach Chris Leeming. "Whether we're just driving pucks to the paint or we're getting them through from anywhere in the O-zone – from the point or the half wall – we've got to find a way to deliver more pucks to the net. That's a major focus right now.
"We're going to take a look at the game film and maybe find some opportunities we could have put pucks on net and try to work on that in practice this week. We're getting frustrated with the last two weekends. Over the last two weekends, we've maybe gotten 45 shots total. That's not enough to put ourselves in a position to score goals."
Trinity Western rode a pair of second-period goals from Brooke Dorash and Ashley Breitkreuz to the late stages of the contest before Kyra McDonald hit an empty net with 2:48 left to seal the result. Mabel Maltais earned her second shutout of the season for the Spartans.
Lindsey Johnson stopped 36 of 38 shots in the contest as she gave the Griffins every chance to stay in the game.
Lindsey Johnson shuts down a 2-on-1 in the first period to keep things scoreless vs. @TWUSpartans after 20 minutes.#GriffNation pic.twitter.com/phftdmQX2W
— MacEwan Griffins Women's Hockey (@GriffinsWHKY) November 16, 2024
"She showed up today and made some key saves, kept us in the game and kept us close," said Leeming. "We definitely got outplayed like last night.
"It was not an effort we can really look at and take a ton of positives from. There were just a lot of areas we didn't execute in and didn't add up to the effort that was given last weekend against U of A and even the weekend prior to that against UBC. We had better showings against the top teams in the league."
The Spartans are now 7-5-0 and have moved into a playoff position in the tough West Division, while MacEwan drops to 1-9-2 and are a full nine points behind Manitoba for the final post-season spot in the East Division.
The season hits the halfway point following next weekend's games with the Griffins heading to Regina for two and Trinity Western at home vs. Mount Royal on Nov. 22-23.
