Lincs rout Legionnaires; secure measure of payback in St. Thomas thriller
By Spencer Seymour
The St. Marys Lincolns extended their winning streak to 12 consecutive games with wins over the Sarnia Legionnaires and St. Thomas Stars.
That said, the way they got those two victories couldn’t have been more different.
Plain and simple, in Sarnia Oct. 22, the Lincolns outclassed the Legionnaires for 60 straight minutes, handing them their 66th consecutive loss, a streak of winless hockey dating back more than a year and a half. The Legionnaires’ last victory was a 6-1 win Feb. 17, 2025, over the Komoka Kings.
The Lincolns continued their run of hot starts to games, outshooting Sarnia 25-5 in the first period and leading 3-0 at the end of 20 minutes.
Heading into St. Thomas, the Lincolns had outshot their opponents 174-45 in the first 10 games of their now 11-game unbeaten stretch and scored 30 total goals while allowing just two.
Ryan Hodkinson finished the game with two goals and an assist, while Owen Bruining had a goal and an assist and Callum McAuley registered three helpers. Devun Colebrook, Cullen Kerslake and Ethan Weir also scored for the Lincolns while Kobe Nadalin backstopped the Lincolns to a 6-0 shutout.
Kerslake’s goal – the first of his Greater Ontario Hockey League (GOHL) career – was the highlight of an otherwise ho-hum blowout for Lincs’ head coach Jeff Bradley.
“It was great to see Cullen get one,” Bradley told the Independent. “Cullen does everything right. I don't think he makes many mistakes at all, and to say that about a rookie is really impressive. He is just such a fantastic hockey player and a great kid who loves to be a part of this team, and we're so happy for him to actually get rewarded with a goal.”
Bradley credited his group for maintaining their level of dominance throughout the game, even well into the third despite being in a position of playing a team so dramatically inferior to the roster iced by the Lincolns.
“There wasn’t much good that could come out of a game against an opponent like that, but I commend the players for doing as well as they did considering what we had to play against,” said Bradley. “It can become frustrating when you get in those games against such inferior teams. After the second, we just talked about having no penalties or suspensions. We didn't care about scoring. We really just wanted to run the time out and then get to St. Thomas.”
Waiting for the Lincolns in St. Thomas was an opponent they have been champing at the bit to face after the Stars. Led by goaltender Dylan Durno, St. Thomas handed the Lincolns their only defeat so far this year on Sept. 18, a 5-3 St. Thomas win. On that night, the Lincolns had a sluggish start before dominating the final 40 minutes, but a stellar effort by Durno in the Stars’ crease guided St. Thomas to the win.
Just over one month later, the Lincolns were determined to not let that happen again. Fortunately for St. Marys, they managed not to repeat that sluggish first period. While their physicality could have been a bit better, the Lincolns still controlled the majority of the play in the opening period.
Unfortunately, the part about Durno standing on his head did happen again. And again. And again. With 31 shots on goal through two periods and plenty more coming in the third, Durno was single-handedly holding the Stars in the lead after the game’s icebreaker in the first by Andrei Gudin, followed by Tyson Orr scoring five minutes and 44 seconds into the third.
The Lincolns were dominating the play, but down 2-0 well into the third, with Durno once again stonewalling them.
Then, as they had been doing all night, a Stars’ defender got their stick in the lane of a Blake Elzinga shot, but rather than sending the puck out of play, it instead sent the puck on a perfect arc to float over Durno, who had dropped into the butterfly position.
In an update to the “Chase of Chase,” with an assist on the goal, Hodkinson tied the GOHL-era Lincolns’ franchise record for career assists, recording his 113th career assist, the same as last year’s Lincs’ captain Chase MacQueen-Spence.
Finally, the Lincolns proved Durno was human, and almost exactly four minutes after Elzinga got St. Marys on the board, Callum McAuley tied the game at two apiece.
Bradley had nothing but praise for his team for their gutsy comeback performance.
“I think it speaks to the belief they have in themselves. They knew that we deserved better and we just have to keep going, and that's the nice thing in a season where a lot has gone right for us sometimes; it’s good to know we can come back. That belief and that refusal to quit was an X-factor we had last year.
“We haven't really been put in that many positions to have to come back this year,” Bradley continued. “So, to be down 2-0 midway through the third period and score two goals on a goaltender that has had our number for 110 minutes or so, it was great to see and just another thing to add to our bag.”
McAuley also delivered arguably his best game of the season, with Bradley stating McAuley’s stellar showing came down to one thing.
“Competing; that's it,” Bradley said. “Callum (McAuley) is so good that sometimes he can get away with not doing that, and I haven't seen him compete and forecheck like that in a long time. For him to do that speaks to why he's a leader on our team, and he knew how important that game was, and he took the bull by the horns and brought us back in the game.”
Up front, Bradley was also very happy with the well-rounded play of Owen Miniotas.
“Owen was really good. I think some people might see how skilled he is and think of him as a pure offensive guy, but he’s more than that, and when games start to get tight in the playoffs and you get into big games, you're looking for guys that do the right things. That, to me, was Owen’s most effective game with us. I just thought he was good everywhere. When we put him in the middle, he'd win draws. He was physical. He didn't turn pucks over. He made a lot of really smart, good little plays, and he was just a positive every time he was on the ice.”
With the game tied 2-2 at the end of 60 minutes, the game went into a thrilling three-on-three overtime, with chances aplenty at both ends, and even better stops by Durno and Lincolns’ netminder Brogan Colquhoun, who ended the night with 30 saves before turning away four of five St. Thomas shooters in the shootout to secure the 3-2 victory.
Bradley called it Colquhoun’s best showing of the season.
“That was a big game for Brogan (Colquhoun), and we needed it. He was challenged at practice in a meeting and we said, ‘You were basically begged to come back to be the guy and for it to be your turn to take this team,’ and he wasn't quite doing it at the level we know he can, in my opinion, and he agreed,” said Bradley.
“He came in against St. Thomas and had an amazing game, which is a hard game for him to win because the goalie across from him is playing like the second coming of Patrick Roy. It's hard to watch that, I'm sure, and not get in your own head, and for him to make those saves in overtime and then in the shootout, it was massive for us.”
Gudin had the only goal for the Stars in the shootout, while Hodkinson and Weir scored for the Lincolns.
According to Bradley, the win meant a great deal to the squad given St. Thomas boasted the only loss suffered by the Lincolns this year.
“I was obviously really happy with the result, but with the effort as well. I think wins like that really bond a team. They had their rookie party (on Oct. 24), and then we had a good practice (on Oct. 25), and I just think we're in a really good spot right now.
“We don't really want that many blemishes. We don't want doubts in our minds as we move forward throughout the season,” Bradley added. “I don't think great teams lose back-to-back games, and that would have been back-to-back against St. Thomas, and we just refused to let that happen.”
While the result was ultimately the same as almost all of their games before it, the Lincolns won their 11th straight in very different fashion than many of their other wins, with many of their other wins being blowouts against teams closer to the bottom than the top of the standings.
Contrast that with their 3-2 shootout win over the Stars, which marked the first time in this winning streak the Lincolns didn’t score at least five goals, and just the second time all season the Lincolns have surrendered more than 30 shots in a game.
Bradley said it was useful to the group to have to win in a different way other than simply shooting the lights out.
“It's very valuable (to have to win in a different way). I know it was only game 14, but in our minds, it was a must-win game. That was a team that had beaten us on home ice in a game that we thought we deserved better in, and then the same thing was happening to us in St. Thomas. So, for us to overcome that was great, and not only that, but even when we were tied, they got some saves that could have easily been goals for us, but we just kept going.”
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