The Port Hope Predators got off to a great start on the weekend, doing away with the Fury 6-3 in Whitby Thursday night and trouncing the Panthers 5-1 in Pickering Friday night.

But on Sunday night, the Preds lost 5-2 to the visiting Lindsay Muskies, who maintain top spot in the Ontario Junior Hockey League’s Ruddock Division.

The Preds closed out the home-and-home with Whitby Thursday after a close game Oct. 12. This time, after a slow start, the Preds were able to run away with it.

Whitby scored at 3:30 of the first period Thursday, beating Spencer Finney for the first goal of the game. The Fury were furious in firing pucks, tallying 15 shots in the first period but unable to solve Finney.

“We struggled in the first period," Preds bench boss Brendan O'Grady said. "But during the intermission, I challenged the team, and that seemed to work."

At 2:19 of the second, Dave Williams connected with a pass from Alex Tillaart and Peter Baldwin to tie it 1-1.

Capt. Jeremy McCarty from his right-hand man, Tyler Miller, were next on the scoreboard at 5:28. Blueliner Jared Barker had some help from the front end as Dave Harris and Travis Savard gave him what he needed for Port Hope’s third goal in a row at 10:44.

Whitby scored at 11:46 to get within one, but the Preds were having none of it; McCarty got that magic Miller pass, courtesy of Mitch Moffatt, and again found the back of the net at 12:55.

Whitby battled away, finally getting one by Finney at 18:04. Moffatt, who has been on a tear the last few games, added a marker at 19:32 from McCarty.

Moffatt from McCarty and Miller would close out the game with the Preds’ final goal of the night at 12:20 of the third period as they effectively shut down any Whitby attempts at a comeback.

"It was a good start to the weekend," O'Grady said. Having played Whitby in Port Hope four nights earlier, O'Grady said, "I don't think we played that great last Sunday, and Whitby is a good team if they hang around. They scored a couple of goals in the second period to keep it close, but as soon as we scored that sixth goal, they didn't really do much after that."

On Friday night, the Preds travelled a little farther up the 401 to take on another new addition team to their division this year, the Pickering Panthers. Port Hope had previously destroyed the Panthers 8-2 at the Preds’ home opener at the start of the season. On Friday night, the Preds had no trouble disposing of the Panthers 5-1

Pickering scored their only goal of the game off what O'Grady said "was a mistake on our part" at 3:44 of the first period.

The rest of the game was all Preds, with a little bit of Akos Agardy between the pipes, making some show-stealing stops, as the Panthers peppered him with pucks. While the Panthers did take 11 shots in the first, the Predators used Pickering’s netminder for target practice, with a blitzkrieg of 20 shots in the opening frame.

Finding a hole to put the puck in took patience, and Port Hope finally capitalized at 18:19 of the first as Miller, who was second in league scoring as of Sunday afternoon, scored with assists going to newly inked Anthony Tapper and rookie Jake Taylor.

The second period was nothing but Preds. McCarty led the parade with an early goal at 4:26 from linemates Miller and Moffatt.

Miller scored an unassisted tally at 5:10 to take the lead to 3-1.

McCarty, with his team short-handed, put the game out of reach at 15:43 from Miller.

Power-play goals were not the Preds’ strong point Friday evening as they went one-for-11, but Louis-Alex Nadeau got Port Hope their only one of the game from linemates Harris and Savard at 19:14.

There was no scoring in the third period, just penalties, and lots of them.

"Pickering has beat Lindsay, and Kingston, so they've already beat the top teams in the division, and the guys had to be prepared," O'Grady said.

"The first period was one of the best we've played. We were moving our feet well, they didn't get many shots, and we were all over them, and then in the second period, the floodgates opened."

With Pickering the game can go either way, and lucky for the Preds, things were in their favour. "When we first played them, they were ready to go. We have good skill and speed, but we also have guys who can play physical, and I think Pickering knew we had a big game at home Sunday night against Lindsay and towards the end they were taking liberties on us, but the refs did a good job making sure none of that stuff was allowed."

The Panthers were looking frustrated and edgy towards the end of the game, and while the Preds had done a good job staying out of the box, taking only one minor penalty in the first two periods, things started to get messy late in the game. “The Lobman boy, that we just got from Pickering, he's a tough kid, and he was yappin’ and I think that's what started it. They were down four goals, but they wanted to send the message that they weren't going to give up. A game can change at any time, and we've been pretty good lately, we've been better staying out of the box. We got a short-handed goal and didn't give them any chances on their power play. We kept them to the outside, and most of their shots were perimeter shots."

Coming off two wins, the Predators were pumped for Sunday night's matchup. "Excited? Yeah, who wouldn't be?" O'Grady said before the game. "The first-place team is coming in to our barn, and we have to have a good game. If we win, we'll be four points out of first place, and cap off the weekend with another win. Then, maybe we can get on a bit of a roll and show that we're the guys to beat."

On Sunday afternoon, the Kingston Voyageurs lost 9-7 to Ajax. Kingston was in second place, and the loss to Ajax gave the Preds a chance to move into second place with a win over Lindsay. That, however, did not happen.

A hypothetical situation doesn't help come crunch time. "We can't worry about that. We have to worry about ourselves. I mean, it's nice if another team can help us out, but we can't worry about that stuff."

Watch the Evening Guide for more on last night’s game.