Wellesley wraps up the regular season with pair of home games this weekend before heading into playoffs

With just two more games in the regular season, it was a test of Wellesley’s playoff readiness.

“The bottom line this weekend is, we played four out of the six periods against the top-place team dead even with them,” said head coach Rob Way. “For two out of those six periods, we took some penalties and they scored a bunch of goals.”

While Way sees improvement in the team since the rocky early games, discipline remains a problem they’ll have to address in the postseason.

“We’ve talked about this all year: In order to win in our league, you cannot take penalties against the good teams. Their power plays are too good, and if they score two or three power play goals on you, you’re going to lose the game.”

The home-and-home weekend kicked off in Wellesley on Friday, where neither team was able to score during the first period. That changed dramatically in the second, when the Jacks took four penalties and the Mounties scored four goals. The Paris dominance continued with two goals early in the third period. While Blake Hetherington (assist: Luke Rose, Cal Jefferies) and Rose scored for the Jacks at 7:42 and 11:11, another Mounties goal at 15:21 widened the rivals’ lead to 7-2.

Wellesley outshot Paris 15-14 and 15-11 in the first and third periods, but faced a 23-shot barrage in the second.

Paris also took an early lead on home ice Sunday, scoring at 17:44 in the first period, then 5:25 and 5:35 in the second. The Jacks briefly managed to tie things up in the second period, with goals by Devon Wagner (Reid Denstedt, Hetherington) at 6:30, Alex Stoody (Brett MacDonald, Chris Beauchesne) 7:11, and Rose (MacDonald, Stoody) at 7:46.

But Paris capped the period with two goals, and bookended the third period with points at 1:09 and 18:35 (the latter on an empty net), with Sean McEwan’s third period goal for Wellesley (assisted by Wagner and Denstedt) in between at 8:48. The final score was 7-4 for Paris.

“They have one of the best power plays in the league,” said Way. “Sunday’s game, we ended up scoring as many power play goals as they did. With special teams, we ended up even, but if we had taken fewer penalties and still scored on our power plays, we could have won the game.

“For four of the six periods, I loved the compete level of the team. It didn’t show up in the score.”

Way anticipates the Jacks’ first-round opponents will be the Norwich Merchants (which, at fourth place, rank just ahead of Wellesley), who they faced recently in back-to-back games. This will be an opportunity to test the team’s mettle, Way said.

“Just like they were taking notes, we were taking notes. We know how their power play works, how their forecheck works, and for the next two weeks, we’re putting systems in place to be successful.”

He added, “I’m not guaranteeing a win, but if we can play like we’re capable of, we can be very competitive against Norwich. And there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to win the series if we play like we’re capable.”

Before the playoffs, the Jacks have two games this weekend on home ice, taking on the Burford Bulldogs Friday and the Delhi Travellers the following evening. Both games begin at 7:30 p.m.