OTTAWA - The Carleton Ravens finished their regular season with a 6-1 loss at home against the Montreal Carabins on Sunday evening. The loss comes despite a good effort from the team, especially on the power play and in the offensive zone.
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Prior to puck drop, the Ravens honoured four graduating players from the team, Stephanie Chouchani (Montreal, Que.), Angelina Callocchia (Beaconsfield, Que.), Samantha Andrews (Exeter, Ont.) and Nieve Seely (Ottawa, Ont.). “It’s always a very special moment,” Ravens head coach Pierre Alain said postgame on seeing the four players honoured before the game. “They’ve spent years with us, they’ve worked hard, been there for every practice, every team bonding, every game and it's very special to see them graduate. Hopefully they had a good time with the team and the program.”
Fresh off the ceremony, the Ravens came out of the gate flying, testing Carabins goaltender Aube Racine with some high danger chances. Lanie Guimond (Kirkland Lake, Ont.) had a terrific chance to bury the puck on the left side of the goal but couldn't get it to go. Momentum quickly shifted though, as the Carabins scored just seconds after a Ravens power play, Audrey-Ann Veillette scoring the goal. Montreal would add another just minutes later to make it 2-0, as Marie Therriault scored on her former Cegep teammate Frédérique Lavoie Leroux (Boucherville, Que.) to add onto the Carabins lead. While there were lots of positives for the Ravens in the opening frame, they entered the dressing room trailing 2-0. “The effort was there,” Alain said. “It seems like every time that we made a mistake, we would pay for it. When we turned the puck over close to the blueline or in our end they buried it and scored on those.”
The game got away from Carleton in the middle frame, as the Carabins transition game came alive and resulted in a 5-0 Montreal lead through 40 minutes of play. Veillette scored her second of the game and Montreal scored two power play goals to extend the lead. The Ravens did a good job at bouncing back from giving up the goals and generating in the offensive zone. The shots were 16-12 in favor of Carleton through two periods indicating that they did generate offensively despite not being able to find the back of the net.
It was a back and forth choppy start to the third, but the Ravens once again did a good job in the offensive zone. They finally broke through on a seeing eye shot by Hunter making it a 5-1 game. “We’ve taken shots from everywhere,” Alain said. “That was the plan. We scored on the power play and were looking for way more shots and way more threats on offense.” The Carabins however, did not let up and added to their total making it 6-1. Time would wind down and the Ravens fell by that score in their regular season finale.
The loss means the Ravens finish the season with a record of 4-11-0 and will face off in a best two out of three series against the Bishop's Gaiters, trying to play for bronze in the RSEQ division. “It's a fresh start,” Alain said. “We haven’t been in the playoffs for years so that's very exciting, we’re all excited. The plan is to play one game at a time and make sure we bring the best out of everyone to move forward and go for bronze.” The dates for that series are still to be determined.
