CHARLOTTETOWN, P.E.I. – Energy is good around the UPEI Panthers despite the men’s hockey team being marred in a seven-game losing streak.
“Nobody is over the moon about our record right now,” head coach Forbes MacPherson said Thursday. “But, having said that, I have to compliment this group to the highest regard. They’re very driven, they work hard everyday, we make adjustments every week based on things we need to clean up and improve from the previous week.”
The bench boss said there is a lot the team likes about the way it is playing right now.
“It just seems like something pops up on a weekly basis and ends up costing us.”
The Panthers (2-7-1) look to snap the skid tonight when they host the Dalhousie Tigers (2-7-1) at 7 p.m. at MacLauchlan Arena.
UPEI has eight games remaining in the first semester of the season, but MacPherson deemed the two points on the line tonight “critical.” It is easy to see why by looking at the standings. The top four teams in the conference have 15 or more points while the bottom three have four or five.
“One of the bottom three right now is not going to get into the playoffs,” MacPherson said.
The Panthers are banged up and will be missing defencemen Tanner McCabe and Austin Levi again this weekend.
“When they’re missing out of our lineup it's a pretty big gaping hole we have to fill,” said MacPherson, who does see a silver lining in the injuries. “It’s given younger guys a lot of minutes early here and it’s kind of force-feeding them into the league.”
The Panthers were young on the back end to start the season, and while the injuries have hurt their depth they have also shone the light on the importance of third-year blue-liner Ryan MacKinnon.
“Ryan has been a horse for us,” MacPherson said. “He’s logging big minutes, playing key minutes, playing with a different D partner, essentially every shift.”
The Panthers end the weekend by hosting St. FX (8-0-2) Saturday at 7 p.m.
