The Cochrane Generals had their point streak snapped after they lost 4-3 at the hands of the Stettler Lightning on Nov. 17 in Heritage Junior Hockey League (HJHL) action. The streak culminated with an eighth straight victory after the Gens bested the High River Flyers 4-2 on Nov. 16. The Gens hit the road for their third and fourth contest of a five-game trip with their first stop taking place in High River. The Flyers scored first in the opening period but Cochrane emphatically responded with three straight goals in the second and third period from Caden Chudleigh, Jordan Fisher and Jordan Marks before Caylin Wildman scored an empty netter after High River made it a 3-2 game in the latter stages of the third. Robert Michetti continued his solid play in the victory, stopping 23 of 25 shots. Cochrane would get little rest before going to battle once again, this time with Stettler. Cochrane was up 3-2 heading into the third thanks to goals from Taylor Girard, Harry Osler and Zach Cugnet but were unable to hold onto the lead with the Lightning tying the game at the 15:13 mark of the third before taking the lead just two minutes later on a power play marker. The Gens fought desperately to send the game into overtime, but their attempts were thwarted by the Lightning goaltender who stopped 40 of the 43 shots he faced. The game got quite chippy with 71 minutes of penalties between both teams including a five-minute major for fighting and 10-minute misconducts to both forward Branden Bain and goaltender Knute Loe, forcing Michetti to come in cold and play the remaining 15 minutes of the third period. "I think that game (against Stettler) in particular, we underachieved in that game. If we had put a couple goals in the back of the net a little bit early on, I don't think those events would have happened," Generals head coach Travis McMillan said of the scrappy game between his team and the Lightning. "I think we controlled the first period rather well, but it kind of spiralled out of control afterwards and we weren't doing a very good job of keeping our composure and it kind of coupled with the fact that Stettler gave us a hard forecheck, drove the net and a couple of our guys thought they took a liberty on our guys in going to the net too hard. Essentially it was a little bit of an emotional mess and, personally, I think it cost us the game." With the loss coming after a very successful stretch of games, McMillan said it's key for the team to not get off track and get back to their winning ways. "I mentioned at the end of the Stettler game that I think it's a mentality type of thing that the guys have to understand that one bad game after a string of good games can derail an organization and cause them to lose three or four in a row," McMillan said. "We just have to get right back to work and work on the stuff that needs to be addressed to build off those things moving forward. I think we'll be OK but it all depends on how we do against Mountainview and Airdrie ... they're big games against rival teams that we need to be at our best in order to win." Cochrane will be in Didsbury on Nov. 23 before returning home to face the 19-1 Airdrie Thunder the following night.
