By: Daniel Vazzoler
The Carleton Place Canadians appeared to not let Thursday night’s loss affect them for very long as they travelled to Rockland and beat the Rockland Nationals 7-2 on Friday.
Following a 4-1 loss on Thursday night to the Kanata Lasers, the Canadians players admitted they didn’t play well against the Lasers – and they were not prepared for a performance like that on back-to-back nights.
Sam Allison opened the scoring on Friday with something that has been a rarity for Carleton Place recently – a power play goal. Near the midway point of the opening period, Sean Storr stopped Justin Cmunt’s shot from the blue-line but couldn’t track the rebound. Allison got to the puck first and found himself looking at an open net for the goal.
Michael Keating tied the game before the end of the first period, beating Jeremie Forget past his trapper with a slap shot from the top of the circles.
After that, the Canadians responded with six unanswered goals to jump out to a 7-1 lead.
Reece Bolton started the scoring run with his first career CCHL goal. Bolton gathered the loose puck near the edge of the crease and quickly snapped a shot into the top corner past Storr’s glove-hand. Peyton Francis scored what ended up being the game-winning goal with a beautiful move on the breakaway. Francis faked the forehand shot and beat Storr with the backhand for the highlight-reel goal.
Carleton Place kept the scoring onslaught going in the third period as Travis Broughman scored the Canadians second power play goal of the game less than two minutes into the final period. Joey Warywoda and Justin Cmunt scored goals 2:01 apart before Josh Gagne scored a shorthanded goal with 8:30 remaining in the third period.
Mathieu Blanchette added a late goal for the Nationals to wrap up the scoring on Friday.
Carleton Place has three games remaining in 2017 before heading into the break for the holidays. The Canadians are on the road Sunday against the Pembroke Lumber Kings and on Wednesday against the Kemptville 73’s. Carleton Place returns home on Friday for a rematch against Kemptville before getting the break started.
