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..FROM
THE DESK OF MIKE HAYAKAWA..
Waxers head coach Russ Herrington acknowledges his club is in a bit of a funk. But he's not about to hit the panic button. At least not yet any ways. Noting that the Provincial Junior A Hockey League season is a long haul, he expected sooner or later his charges would at some point be residing in a valley after getting its year off on a torrid pace of eight wins in its first nine games. "Every team goes through a slump at some point," Herrington pointed out. If we're going to have a slump it might as well be now. Right now though, we're not playing well." The way Herrington sees it, all his club needs is for the puck to bounce in their favour every now and then and things could change for the better. For this to happen though, he feels his club must make a minor adjustment by giving a better effort on the ice. "Last night (Sunday) we didn't have anything going our way. We're not getting any luck which is a cause for why we're slumping. But it's a direct result of our effort level. I don't think we're giving the effort we can. We're not paying the price like we did earlier on. It's purely a puncture repair job. We feel we can turn this thing around." In Friday's loss to the Buzzers, the Waxers trailed 2-0 after 20 minutes before Jesse Boucher delivered a power-play goal to cut the deficit to a goal after two periods. But that would be all of the scoring in a game, which saw the Waxers pepper 52 shots on net.
On Sunday, the Waxers dug themselves into a deep hole in the first period as they trailed 3-0 to the Raiders before Kevin Cribari put Markham on the scoreboard before the stanza concluded. The Raiders delivered the lone goal of the second period before Boucher scored a power-play marker in the final frame. But that would be as close as the Waxers would get. In accentuating the positive, Herrington did see some light at the end of the tunnel. He felt his club's special teams gave a good account of themselves. "I thought our penalty killing was good. Wexford got just one power-play goal off a lucky bounce. And our power-play is generating some scoring chances and we're getting some goals." The two losses dropped the Waxers' record to 16-10-0-0 and saw them fall into second place in the southern division, three points behind the first-place Raiders. The Waxers hope to end their slump Friday when they host the Oshawa Legionaires at 8 p.m. On Saturday, the Waxers go on the road to face the Vaughan Vipers at 7 p.m.
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