Frayne reaches 150-game milestone, Warriors' offence sputters in weekend losses

This week, another player from the Stratford Hunter Steel Warriors reached the 150-game mark. Team captain Haden Frayne became the 23rd player in the organization to achieve this feat during the game against the St. Marys Lincolns on Feb. 27.

An elated Frayne says he’s grateful for his entire junior hockey career with the Warriors.

“Yeah, it's been an amazing four years here. For me, I've loved every second of it, from the coaching staff to the management. The friendships I've made are for a lifetime. I've been really enjoying my time here,” Frayne said.

Three longtime teammates of Frayne – Jonas Schmidt, Joseph Curtin and Rhyse Brown – shared their thoughts on their teammate.

“He's been a pleasure to play with ever since minor hockey. We played together in the Huron-Perth Lakers program. I love Rayner. He's a great teammate, someone who will go to war every night, and he's a great person to have on our side,” Schmidt said.

“He's an awesome, awesome player. Really happy for him to play the 150th game, and no better guy to have as a captain. So happy for him,” Curtin said.

“Yeah, obviously, I came in here my first year. It was Rayner's first year as well, and I became good friends with him, and I'm glad that I got to spend these four years with him. One-hundred-fifty games for him is a big milestone,” Brown said.

“I mean, he works hard night in, night out. That's especially why he's the biggest leader on our team, and shows up for the guys, protects everybody around him.”

Brown, who joined the elusive milestone club back on Dec. 14, offers advice to Frayne on his milestone game.

“I think you just have to take it all in. I mean, being a hometown boy, I would be super appreciative of him and grateful to him,” Brown said.

Head coach Dave Williams praises the Stratford native for his contribution to the organization.

“I mean, I think it's great as a local guy. I'm sure when he was a youngster, he came here and watched a lot of teams before he had the opportunity to play here. And from day one, he's come in, and he works incredibly hard every day he comes here, you know, from the time he started at 17 ‘till today, he's a 20-year-old captain,” Williams said.

“He exemplifies everything that we would want in a player, you know, with respect to work ethic and being a great teammate. And, you know, no guy in the dressing room wants to win more than he does.”

The fourth and final regular-season installment of the “Battle of Highway 7” took place at the jam-packed Pyramid Recreation Complex at St. Marys on Feb. 27.

Drew Hodge put the Warriors on the board 7:30 into the first period with his fourth goal of the season from Aaron Green and Cruz Ferguson. Starting netminder Noah Bender stonewalled the Lincolns with 13 saves to preserve the 1-0 Stratford lead through 20 minutes.

The Warriors looked to add to their lead in the middle frame but were unable to carve out another goal thanks to the stymied St. Marys defence and goaltending. Bender continued to put on the goaltending clinic until the Lincolns solved the netminder in the closing seconds of the middle frame and tied the game at one apiece heading into the final period.

In the third period, the Lincolns completely took over the momentum and the game. The Lincolns took the lead on the quick powerplay strike at 5:53 and cemented the victory with a breakaway, sharpshooter goal with 2:21 remaining.

Bender stopped 26 of 29 shots in the loss.

Following the loss to the Lincolns, chances of achieving a top-two playoff seed are now quite low. However, there remains a possibility of securing home ice advantage in the first round.

Williams commented on the defeat after the playoff-style game.

“I thought we competed and battled hard. They're a very good hockey team and there's not a whole lot of room out there. We could have done a better job with some of the chances we did get; a team like that usually doesn't give you a lot,” Williams said.

“Thinking back to the second period, we had, I think, three odd-man rushes where we didn't get a shot on the net, and three or four where we didn't get a shot on the net. In the third, we got to find something off that power play, for sure. Even finding some momentum out of that, but yeah, it's the type of game that you expect in here. Disappointed that we didn't get the win, but I thought our guys competed hard.”

Stratford aimed to end the weekend and February on a high by travelling to Strathroy to face the Rockets at the West Middlesex Arena on Feb. 28.

Strathroy opened the scoring at 5:21 of the first period. Late in the period, Dax Vader responded for Stratford with his sixth of the season, assisted by Curtin and Coen Galbraith. The Rockets retook the lead early in the second period, only for Quinn Kipfer to tie the game at the midway point of the middle frame with his 14th of the season, assisted by Aaron Green and Will Coward.

The score stood at 2-2 until the middle of the third period, when the Rockets scored the decisive goal and secured an insurance goal with 3:19 remaining.

Gage Hurst made 18 saves in the loss for the Warriors.

The Warriors' offence struggled, and they were outscored 7-3 in both losses. Currently, they are ranked 9th in the league with 179 goals. After the game, Williams promised to focus more on the offence during the final week of the regular season as the playoffs near.

“I think we've got to keep focusing on trying to generate offence. We're missing a couple of guys right now that we would count on to provide a little bit of that offence, but when that happens, that's an opportunity for other guys to step up and contribute,” Williams said.

“The week of practice is really focusing on generating quality offensive opportunities and maximizing shots and pucks that we get in good areas, you know, I think stuff like that can be worked on in practice, and you know, trying to build some confidence scoring goals in practice for next weekend.”

Following the two losses, the Warriors are tied with the London Nationals for fourth place in the Western Conference. Stratford concludes its regular season with a home game against the Waterloo Siskins at the Allman Arena on March 6 and a road game against the Chatham Maroons on March 8.