Despite loss, coach figures team is finding its stride
Nov 22, 2007 - 02:02 PM
By Shawn Cayley
OSHAWA -- The ever-changing roster of the Durham Fury is coming together according to their coach.
Although Tuesday's 7-1 loss to the Markham Waxers provided little to support that theory, Grant Musselman remained relatively upbeat afterwards when talking about the significant improvement he has seen from his club over the past couple of weeks, most notably from the back end.
"No disrespect to the guys that were with us before, but we needed to get faster on the back end," said the coach after Tuesday's game. "You can see it with the two kids we picked up, Timmy Halloran and Allen Dillon, arguably our two best defencemen since they've been here. They've played very well. They have a lot of speed, they stand up and they make plays out there. Hopefully their play rubs off on the other guys."
In four games since being acquired from Stouffville, Halloran has stepped right into a prominent role on the blue-line, logging plenty of minutes while contributing three points. As for Dillon, ex of the Bowmanville Eagles, he has made a seamless transition from one Durham Region team to another.
"Dillon has been real strong for us, we're impressed" said GM John Annis, who picked up the former Kitchener Rangers draft pick in exchange for forward Chris Bain two weeks ago.
However, there wasn't much either defender could do to prevent Tuesday night's setback.
Locked in a scoreless affair early in the second, penalty trouble, something that has dogged the Fury all season long, reared its ugly head once again as back-to-back penalties left them to defend a 5-on-3 Markham power play.
Corey Tamblyn scored his first of two on the night for Markham 35 seconds into the advantage, a tally which opened the floodgates.
Before the second had concluded, Markham owned a 4-0 lead, which quickly grew to 5-0 early in the third before Matt Gauld scored the Fury's only goal of the evening with under 10 minutes to go in the period.
Markham added two more late in the frame to round out the scoring.
After struggling mightily at times to find the solution to the ailment that has plagued his club, it sounds as though Musselman may finally have his finger on the issue.
Confidence, or lack of, seems to be the problem, he says.
"We've had games where all of the sudden we get scored on and we don't have a lot of confidence when we get scored on," explained Musselman. "When we get down a goal, we have to have ownership of our game a little better to get back in game."
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