By: Daniel Vazzoler
The Bogart Cup Finals didn’t start the way the Carleton Place Canadians would have wanted as they lost Game One 2-1 to the Ottawa Jr. Senators at the Carleton Place Arena on Friday.
The Canadians controlled aspects of play for parts of Friday’s game but the up-and-down play ended up being their downfall. Carleton Place started the game strong and Keenan Reynolds gave his team the lead 8:40 into the second period. Then Ottawa started gaining momentum and turned it into a pair of goals in the middle frame that proved to be the difference.
“Both those goals that were scored against us were very uncharacteristic of our hockey team,” Canadians coach Jason Clarke said following the loss. “Maybe that could be the 10-day lay-off that we had, or maybe Ottawa was ready for a war because they just played a big Game Seven, who knows. You can’t have any excuses, you just need to turn the page and get ready for [Saturday] night and obviously it’s a big game for us.”
Carleton Place did a great job of getting shots on net but had little to no traffic in front of Ottawa goalie Connor Hicks as he stopped 42 of 43 shots, having a clear view of nearly all of them. The message was delivered from Clarke to his team and the players are aware of what needs to change heading into Game Two.
“We need a lot more traffic and winning puck battles in front of the net,” Carleton Place captain Geoff Kitt reiterated. “Obviously we let him see everything [Friday night] and he’s a good calm goaltender. We’ve got to try and get pucks in his feet from the point rather than going up high from the point. When we have a chance in the slot, then we’ll put it up high.”
Both goalies played extremely well on Friday with both Hicks and Michael Leach for the Canadians making a number of highlight-worthy saves to keep the opposition off the score-board.
Hicks even got a piece of Reynolds’ shot on his goal, before the puck ultimately trickled over the goal-line. Sam Knoblauch found Reynolds with a cross-crease pass on the rush and Hicks pushed hard across his net to his right and stuck his blocker in the air to initially make the save before the puck deflected off his blocker and into the net.
A Canadians turn-over in their own zone gave Devon Daniels the opportunity to tie the game 0:53 after falling behind. Daniels got the puck in the slot and whipped his wrist off the post and past Leach.
Six minutes later the Jr. Senators struck again, this time with a short-handed goal. Nick Lalonde stole the puck off a face-off in the Ottawa end and chipped the puck into the Carleton Place zone and won the ensuing puck battle along the end boards against a pair of Canadians defenders. Owen Guy found himself wide open in the slot and one-timed the pass through Leach’s legs for what ended up being the game-winning goal.
“We played a really good first period, really worked their ‘D’ down low and were doing all the little things that CPC does well,” Kitt said. “We kind of let up in the second and progressively got worse as the game went on. You can’t give a team like Ottawa an inch because they’ll take a foot. They capitalized on their chances and (when) we got behind we couldn’t crawl our way back into it.”
“We were just average [Friday night], I thought,” Clarke added. “We lost a lot of one-on-one battles and we had some of our top guys not playing 200-feet. If you’re not going to battle against a talented and motivated team like Ottawa, then you’re going to get this type of result and that’s exactly what happened.
“Sure, we out-shot them and had more (attacking) zone time than them, but when push came to shove and win those battles when we needed to, they won them,” Clarke continued.
Neither team has much time to reflect on Friday’s game as Game Two of the series is on Saturday night when the Canadians will look to return the favour and win on the road at the Jim Durrell Conplex.
Playoff Matchups Around the League
* = if necessary
BOLD = higher seed home game
Bogart Cup Finals
(1) CPC vs (2) OJS – OJS leads 1-0
GAME 1: CPC vs OJS – OJS 2-1
GAME 2: OJS vs CPC – Sat., Apr. 14 – 7:30 p.m.
GAME 3: CPC vs OJS – Mon., Apr. 16 – 7:30 p.m.
GAME 4: OJS vs CPC – Wed., Apr. 18 – 7:30 p.m.
GAME 5: CPC vs OJS – Sat., Apr. 21 – 7:45 p.m. *
GAME 6: OJS vs CPC – Sun., Apr. 22 – 7:30 p.m. *
GAME 7: CPC vs OJS – Tues., Apr. 24 – 7:30 p.m. *
Semi-finals
(1) CPC vs (4) HAW – CPC wins 4-0
GAME 1: CPC vs HAW – CPC 4-2
GAME 2: HAW vs CPC – CPC 3-2
GAME 3: CPC vs HAW – CPC 4-1
GAME 4: HAW vs CPC – CPC 5-1
(2) OJS vs (3) BRO – OJS wins 4-3
GAME 1: OJS vs BRO – OJS 6-1
GAME 2: BRO vs OJS – OJS 5-1
GAME 3: OJS vs BRO – BRO 3-1
GAME 4: BRO vs OJS – OJS 5-1
GAME 5: OJS vs BRO – BRO 6-5 (OT)
GAME 6: BRO vs OJS – BRO 4-2
GAME 7: OJS vs BRO – OJS 5-1
Quarter-finals
(1) CPC vs (8) ROC – CPC wins 4-1
GAME 1: CPC vs ROC – CPC 6-2
GAME 2: ROC vs CPC – ROC 3-2 (OT)
GAME 3: CPC vs ROC – CPC 4-2
GAME 4: ROC vs CPC – CPC 3-0
GAME 5: CPC vs ROC – CPC 7-2
(2) OJS vs (7) PLK – OJS wins 4-2
GAME 1: OJS vs PLK – OJS 5-0
GAME 2: PLK vs OJS – OJS 6-2
GAME 3: OJS vs PLK – PLK 4-2
GAME 4: PLK vs OJS – OJS 4-0
GAME 5: OJS vs PLK – PLK 4-3
GAME 6: PLK vs OJS – OJS 6-1
(3) BRO vs (6) KAN – BRO wins 4-0
GAME 1: BRO vs KAN – BRO 5-3
GAME 2: KAN vs BRO – BRO 5-4 (OT)
GAME 3: BRO vs KAN – BRO 4-3
GAME 4: KAN vs BRO – BRO 4-2
(4) HAW vs (5) CRW – HAW wins 4-3
GAME 1: HAW vs CRW – HAW 4-3
GAME 2: CRW vs HAW – CRW 4-2
GAME 3: HAW vs CRW – HAW 4-3 (OT2)
GAME 4: CRW vs HAW – HAW 3-1
GAME 5: HAW vs CRW – CRW 3-2 (OT2)
GAME 6: CRW vs HAW – CRW 4-3 (OT)
GAME 7: HAW vs CRW – HAW 9-0
