Dispatches from the Kalamazoo Wings: November 15

KALAMAZOO, Mich. – For the first time this season, the Kalamazoo Wings dropped two consecutive games, in back-to-back losses against the Adirondack Thunder. After a hot start to the year, they now sit fifth in the Central Division at 5-4-1.

In front of a sold-out crowd on Friday, the Wings couldn’t crack Connor Ingram, who was playing his first game with the Thunder this season after being sent down from the Syracuse Crunch. The 20-year-old rookie stopped 33 shots, allowing only one goal.

That goal came from defenseman Kyle Bushee, the rebound from his shot deflecting off a Thunder skate and tying the game at one. It didn’t last long – C.J. Campagna brought back the Thunder’s lead just 36 seconds later. Despite out-shooting the Thunder 34-28, the Wings couldn’t find their way back to the scoresheet, while the Thunder notched two more goals from Ty Loney and Terrence Wallin, closing out the game 4-1.

“We just gotta be better,” said Vancouver defence prospect Anton Cederholm. “We gotta bring it. We had a sold-out crowd, and we didn’t bring it. We can use an excuse, but we shouldn’t. We haven’t played for a long time, y’know, five days, but at this level, you can’t really blame it on that. So we gotta be ready, we gotta be better.”

The Wings needed to reset going into Saturday’s game, but the Thunder came out of the gate just as dominate as the night before. Pierre-Luc Mercier and James Henry gave Adirondack an early two-goal lead. As the first period neared its end, Eric Kattelus set up Cederholm to cut the lead in half.

“It was a good offensive shift; working the puck high to low, behind the net and good cycle,” said Kattelus. “When our D activate, we’re gonna find a lot of offence. Ceder found a hole right down the slot, and I was just there to make a pretty easy pass to him.”

Cederholm wasn’t so sure it was that easy. “I mean, he’s got great vision, I don’t know how he found me, I think he just heard me. So I was just lucky to get it and then kinda just see where to shoot and shoot it. Felt nice to get that one out of the way.”

Down by one early in the second period, Josh Pitt was able to keep the Wings in the game, getting the Wings’ second goal past Ingram and tying the game. But just as the night before, the tying goal was quickly followed by an Adirondack goal. Austin Orszulak put the Thunder back on top just 1:37 after Pitt scored. Orszulak added another halfway through the period. With Pitt in the box for slashing, Ty Loney opened up the third with a power play goal, just 34 seconds into the final frame.

Once again, the Wings out-shot the Thunder 27-21, but a standout performance from a rookie goaltender sent the Thunder home winning this one 5-2.

“It’s tough to swallow right now,” said Kattelus. “We needed four points this weekend, and we didn’t come out with any. It might be a little bit back to the drawing board, but we’re a hard-working team that is going to be competing every weekend.”

While goaltending held Kalamazoo to just three goals this weekend, Kattelus doesn’t see that as their only struggle.

“I think we needed to just pressure their D a little more. I know they got the puck up and transitioned pretty quickly, and into our zone quick, so I think if we’d had our forecheck working a little better, we would’ve come out with a different outcome.”

“My opinion, we have the best goalie in the league in Joel Martin and even Joel Martin is gonna have some tough bounces and that happens,” added Cederholm. “We have bad days. So do I. So do my teammates. So do goalies sometimes. I don’t think we brought our best to kinda test their goalie; I think that’s definitely a factor.”

Going forward, the Wings need to address their power play struggles. In ten opportunities with the man advantage this weekend, they were only able to capitalize once, finding difficulties in setting up in their zone the other nine times.

Cederholm sees room for change. “I wonder if they maybe read our game a little bit and then we had a hard time adjusting without practicing it and going through a lot of stuff. So it’s something we’re gonna have to work on here in the next week. We don’t have a lot of games, so that kind of works for us, we can work on different set ups.”

Kattelus also remains optimistic. “We’ve been working on it. It’s a process. It doesn’t come all in the first couple games of the season, and we’re just trying to find our rhythm. I think if we get the puck up ice and bring speed and attack into the zone, good things are gonna happen.

“We’re looking forward to our challenge away in Indy. One game next weekend, so we gotta leave it all out there.”

The Wings only have one game coming up, a road trip to Indianapolis to see the Fuel on Friday, then another five-day break before heading to Brampton on Thanksgiving. The extra practice days will give them time to rethink, rework, and come up with new solutions to the challenges they faced in a tough doubleheader weekend. There’s a lot of faith in this team’s ability to pull it together.

“I think we have some stuff to work on, but just judging from the start of the year, we have a good team, and we shouldn’t be worried,” said Cederholm. “I think we just gotta keep it going, keep working.”