Richmond Royals let early leads slip in pair of one-goal losses
From the Manotick Messenger
The Richmond Royals missed a huge opportunity to gain some ground on the two teams immediately ahead of them in the Central Canada Hockey League Tier 2 standings over the weekend.
The eighth place Royals travelled to Winchester to face the sixth place Hawks Friday night and then hosted the seventh place Embrun Panthers in Richmond Sunday. The Royals lost a pair of one-goal games.
In Winchester on Friday, the Royals jumped out to a 4-2 lead in the first period, but would lose 6-5 in a shootout. Patrick Yates, Ryan Bouley and Josh Arts each had a goal and an assist for the Royals while Adam Goodfellow assisted on a pair of Royals goals. Willem Brandt also scored, with Thomas Cousens adding an assist.
On Sunday afternoon, fans saw a great goaltending battle between Eric Tessier of the Royals and Cody MacEachern of the Embrun Panthers. Despite Tessier’s 35 save effort, the Royals fell 2-1 to the visitors thanks to a pair of Panthers’ power play goals.
The Royals once again jumped into an early lead, as Josh Arts netted his fourth goal of the year from Owen Nevins and Grant Cooper.
The Panthers tied the score late in the second as Mathieu Plante scored his first goal of the season on the power play from Connor Drost and Philippe Plante.
The winning goal came with just 2:43 left in the third period, as Mathieu Brennan notched a power play goal from Jeremy Cyr. The Royals pushed for the equalizer, but MacEachern was solid in goal and the Royals were called for a checking to the head penalty with 2:02 left to play to put them a man down.
The Royals have two Sunday afternoon home games before Christmas, as they take on Winchester Dec. 16 and the Athens Aeros come to town Dec. 23. Both games are at 1:30 p.m.
