The weekend may have seen no change in the points tally but a few ripples resonated through their roster as the Orangeville Crushers made some big moves just before the Central Canadian Hockey League trading deadline this past week.

A trio of team veterans, including forwards Mike Arnold and Jarrod Connelly, along with Grand Valley native Kevin VanDyk, will be off to play in new surroundings while a couple of seasoned defencemen will join Orangeville in the playoff run this season.

Both Arnold, who up until the trade was the team’s leading scorer, and Connelly are in their final season of junior eligibility, so making a trade of this nature at this point in the season comes as little surprise to many. Citing the depth of offence in the Crushers lineup, team officials made the decision to shore up a struggling defensive core with the moves.

Joining Orangeville for Arnold from Kingston will be defenceman Jacob Chiblow, while Van Dyk will be off to Georgetown for Jonathan Demme, who will be making his way here through a deal with the Raiders through Brampton.

Connelly will wrap up his junior career in Newmarket for future player considerations.

On the ice this past weekend, the Crushers despite going 0-2 in the win column, still managed to lock up a playoff berth. Riding a five-game winning streak into Friday night’s contest against Hamilton, Orangeville might have started the game suffering from the complaciency bug. Down 2-0 early in the second, Crushers Nicholas Vassos provided the only scoring for the team with a pair while Hamilton chipped in four in the third on the way to a 6-2 win.

Saturday night in Burlington, however, was a different story. Up 3-0 before the midway point of the first on goals by Norm Ezekiel, Cody Britton and Philip Teri, it was Burlington who found themselves on the hot seat, courtesy of the Crushers.

Griffen Lacey and Nick Quinn each tallied for singles while Alex Guptill chipped in with a pair but the Cougars fought back with determination to edge past Orangeville in the third and steal the win by a final score of 8-7.

This weekend sees Orangeville stay close to home, hosting games against Dixie and Cobourg.

Friday night, it’s the Beehives in town for their last regular-season game against the Crushers and then it’s the other Cougars —these ones making the trip from Cobourg on Saturday night. Both games are slated for 7:30 p.m. starts at the Alder Street Community Centre.