The only thing worse than getting blown out is getting blown out by your rival. A few seasons ago the rivalry between the Montreal Militia and Detroit Falcons was the most contentious in the SMJHL and while it has settled down a bit since, it seems to be making a slight comeback this season. Overall the season series against the Falcons has gone very well for us. We've taken 8 points in 7 games which may not seem like a whole lot but if we earned points at that pace against the entire league we'd be sitting at a respectable 48 points, squarely in a playoff position with eight games to play. In Game 86, though, we just got absolutely dumpstered 7-2. A big reason why we got blown out has been a problem that's dogged us all season – we got out-shot 38-25. Giving up a massive shot differential like that is simply not a good way to win hockey games. It also didn't help that we were unable to draw penalties and only gave our power play 2 opportunities – half as many as the 4 we gave the Falcons. That difference didn't make up the five-goal difference between our teams this game but was certainly one of the factors that added up. But really the biggest reason we lost was that Maurizio Arrivabene recorded scored three goals on five shots, recording more goals than our entire team. It is really, really hard to win when that happens.


An example of a game where we were able to play on our terms and came out ahead was Game 108 against the Vancouver Whalers when we won 4-2. In that game we were able to consistently draw penalty calls and we saw a parade of Whalers to the penalty box as six different Whalers gave us 8 power play opportunities, on which we scored 3 times and wore down many of their top players. Forcing an opponent to use up precious ice time on the penalty kill where they have an extremely low chance of scoring is absolutely fantastic, especially for a team like us who struggles against teams at even strength. For example, the Whalers' top three defensemen – Shoyu Kikkoman, Isak Ødegård, and Hoid Wit – have scored a combined 85 points but were held to just 1 in this game thanks in part to them playing a combined 16:21 on the penalty kill. Plus we play a pretty rough style of hockey as evidenced by our 25-12 edge in hits delivered so only giving the Whalers 2 power play opportunities was huge. Perhaps most critically, however, we were able to keep the shot differential in check, only trailing 30-26 in this game. Again, this stems from the penalty differential, as we had quite a few more opportunities to take shots than the Whalers. While drawing 8 power plays is an unrealistic strategy that isn't regularly repeatable, we've struggled to score at 5v5 so amassing a special teams advantage is even more important to us than most teams. 28% of our goals this season have come on the power play which is third in the SMJHL this season.