There’s one philosophy in some hockey circles that says; it’s not how many goals you score, it’s how many goal you stop the other team from getting.

That rang true during the Orangeville Junior A Flyers home game against the Milton IceHawks on Saturday (Nov. 21) at the Alder Street arena.

All the scoring was done in the first period.

The Flyers lit up the scoreboard first when Derek Topatigh scored on an assist from Brett Bannister at 6:18 into the game.

Travis Brown got the second Flyers goal just over two and a-half minutes later to lead the IceHawks in the early going.

Milton responded late in the frame with a single with 38 seconds left in the period. From there it a full on back and forth game that was fast paced and saw few penalties.

The Flyers spent eight minutes in the box on minors with no penalties assessed in the third period.

Milton spent ten minutes cooling their heels on minor penalties.

With a one goal lead, the Flyers did prove that sometimes a good defence is the best offence when they shut down the Milton squad for the rest of the game despite not being able to score themselves.

The third period was played at a blistering pace with very few whistles and as the lines kept rolling the puck was cycled around and around as each team tried to find the opportunity to get one more goal.

The game ended with a 2-1 win for the Flyers.

The Flyers out-shot the IceHawks 37-25 for the game.

“We’re a low scoring team. This has been our crutch all year,” Said Flyers head coach Jamie Caruso of taking the win with only two goals on the scoreboard. “We have a hard time scoring goals and this (Milton) is the last place team in the League. We’re looking to maybe bring some guys in. We’re looking for some older guys around the League right now because Connor Stack’s (Flyers forward) done for the year.”

That fact that the Flyers aren’t a high scoring team doesn’t reflect that good solid work they have been doing this season.

“I said to our team, it wasn’t pretty, but it our win number fifteen already and we aren’t even in December,” Caruso said. “In this league it’s hard to win consistently. The League has so much parity. Our Division is now the toughest. If you were to look back at this game, I think we had two break-aways, maybe two, two on ones, some good offensive opportunities but again we just don’t have any natural goal scorers.”

The Flyers are third in the West Division of the Ontario Junior Hockey League but there is very little distance between the top four teams.

Georgetown is currently in first place with 34 points, followed by Buffalo with 33, Orangeville with 32 points, and Burlington who also have 32 points.

The Flyers have a 15-9-1 record including one overtime loss.

The loss of Connor Stack is also leaving a hole in the Flyers line-up.

The veteran forward received a serious ankle injury in the previous week’s game and will be out for the rest of the season.

Stack played 22 games in the 2015 / 16 season scoring five goals and getting credit for 11 assists.

The Flyers will have their weekend home game moved up a day this week.

Instead of their usual Saturday night game, the team will return to home ice at the Alder Street arena on Friday, November 27, to host the Toronto Jr. Canadiens.

Game time is 7:30 p.m.