December 20, 2021 at 8:06 a.m.
Stank stops 60 shots as Northern Edge falls to Hayward
Stank stops 60 shots as Northern Edge falls to Hayward
Wyndi Saari scored twice and goalie Ellie Stank made 60 saves, but that was not enough to stop the Hayward co-op's onslaught in a 7-2 loss Saturday night at the Rhinelander Ice Arena.
Makaela Reinke recorded a hat trick for the Hurricanes (4-3-0), and Hailey Olby added a pair of goals, as Hayward blew the game open in the second and third periods.
"I know they're gassed," Edge coach Tom Roeser said of his squad, which had only 11 players available for the contest. "Hayward, they're tough. They're strong girls, good shots. We played hard til the end, so I was happy with that."
The Edge (0-2-0) suffered its second five-goal loss of the season after dropping their opener 6-1 at Northland Pines Dec. 7.
Stank, a junior from Antigo, had a workout in goal all night. She stopped the first 22 shots she faced, but shot No. 23 slipped through with 9.9 seconds left in the first period to give the Hurricanes a 1-0 lead. Summer Hamman found a rebound off a Gillian Johnson shot to put Hayward on the board.
"Our defensemen have to get sticks up off the ice in front of her," Roeser said. "We've got to battle a little tougher in front of her. I thought she did a great job tonight and we need to support (Stank) a little better."
The Edge - a co-op of Rhinelander, Antigo, Lakeland and Wabeno high schools - tied it just 16 seconds into the second period. Saari, a junior from Rhinelander, carried the puck along the bench-side boards, skated in on net and finished the one-timer to tie the game.
But Hayward answered back just over two minutes later and the floodgates opened from there for the Hurricanes.
Reinke popped her first goal of the night, beating Stank top shelf to the glove side at the 2:40 mark of the second to give Hayward a lead it would not relinquish. Olby scored back-to-back on point-blank chances 3 minutes, 10 seconds apart and Reinke added another goal with 2:09 remaining in the second to give the Hurricanes a 5-1 lead after two periods.
Reinke completed her hat trick 2:48 into the third period on a short-handed chance before Saari scored again for the Edge, generating a turnover at the Hayward blue line and skating in for the finish.
Saari, who had only two goals all of last season, has all three Northern Edge tallies through the first two games of this season.
"This year, when Wyndi gets the puck on her stick, she puts it home," Roeser said. "I'm proud of her. The three opportunities she's had this year where she did have a clean opportunity, she's finishing, which is good. She's getting her head up and finding the open net."
Lily Eytcheson rounded out the scoring for Hayward with a tally with 7:01 remaining in the contest.
The Hurricanes recorded at least 20 shots on goal in all three periods and finished with a 67-16 edge in the shot column.
"When I looked at the shots at the end of the game, maybe it looked that lopsided, but it didn't feel that lopsided to me. We had some opportunities where we took it to their zone but didn't get pucks to the net," Roeser said.
Stank set a career high for saves in contest and became the first Edge goalie to stop 60 or more pucks in a game since a 63-save effort by Alicia Turunen against Appleton United Jan. 30, 2018.
"She's almost at .900 (save percentage) right now," Roeser said. "A lot of .900 goalies in the state are seeing 20-30 shots a game. If you can keep pace with that seeing 60, you're doing a really good job. The downside of that is we need to get her some relief. We need to get the puck out of the zone, work the puck through neutral ice without turning it over, get it deep and generate some of our offense."
Getting games in this season had been a challenge for the Edge, who have played only two of their first eight scheduled contests, due to either a low number of available players or inclement weather. The latest casualty on the schedule was this past Thursday as the Edge postponed a road contest at Medford due to unsafe road conditions following a strong storm system that pushed through the area. No make-up date has been announced.
Despite the lack of games, Roeser said he is seeing incremental improvements from his squad.
"We're a work in progress. We're getting better and I thought we did a really good job of blocking shots today, which typically isn't our M.O.," he said. "I think that's a mentality that the girls brought today and we talked about it. I thought they did a really good job on that and we're going to try to continue to do that."
The road does not get any easier for the Edge as it travels to Greenheck Fieldhouse in Schofield this evening to take on the third-ranked Central Wisconsin Storm. It will be the team's final game of the calendar year.
"We're going to see some shots, so we're going to work on our D-zone (coverage), but one of my main concerns is what we do with that puck in neutral ice," Roeser said. "We can't turn the puck over. We've got to start getting it deep, playing smart. If we can't skate it in, get it deep and relieve our goalie. That's going to be a big deal."
Jeremy Mayo may be reached at [email protected].
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