By: Daniel Vazzoler
The Carleton Place Canadians travelled to Brockville to start off their weekend home-and-home series against the Brockville Braves, getting it started with a 3-2 loss in the shoot-out.
Carleton Place held a 2-1 lead at one point in the game, but, according to coach Jason Clarke, the Canadians lost the game because they switched off mentally.
“As soon as we scored the second goal, I thought our team got very complacent and didn’t really respect our opponent very much,” he said. “They kind of just played as hard as they (thought) they had to and really didn’t execute any of the game plan we talked about. Guys were on their own game plan [Friday].”
Clarke said his team got off to a strong start on Friday, but it wasn’t able to be rewarded for its efforts as Carleton Place trailed 1-0 after a 5-on-3 power play goal that left coach less than pleased with a pair of veteran defencemen.
“On the 5-on-3 goal, both (Tim) Theocharidis and (Aidan) Girduckis are out to lunch on the play,” he said.
Both coach and players said the inability to convert on their 16-8 advantage in shots in the first period wasn’t the deciding factor in determining the winner on Friday.
“We had our chances, but guys weren’t really in the right spots a lot during the offensive zone chances,” said Canadians assistant captain Sam Knoblauch. “We’ve got to learn from that and make sure we play our systems and we’ll get rewarded.”
Jonathan Hill’s 5-on-3 goal came late in the first period, and it didn’t take long for Carleton Place to respond in the second period.
Connor Hill finished off a one-timer in the slot 2:58 into the second period, taking the pass from Girduckis. Then Knoblauch danced his way through the Brockville defence and, while falling, beat Yaniv Perets over the goaltender’s stick-side shoulder.
And that’s where the Canadians highlights end.
Brockville started to gain momentum as the second period continued and carried it into the third period, where Simon Kerr beat Jeremie Forget with the wraparound goal with less than seven minutes to play.
“I think we got outworked,” Knoblauch said. “They really took it to us in the third (period) and we really didn’t have much zone time and that’s definitely something we’ll be thinking about.”
The over-time period solved nothing and Brockville had a perfect shoot-out performance. Philippe Gilmour and Hill scored for the Braves while Perets stopped Justin Cmunt and Peyton Francis.
“It (the shoot-out) isn’t my favourite part of the game, but we should have finished it off 3-on-3 to be honest, but, again, guys weren’t patient with the puck,” Clarke expressed. “Guys just did whatever they wanted to instead of listening to the game plan. We wanted to be patient with the puck in 3-on-3 and we just forced everything all the time. Wasn’t a lot of listening going on [Friday].”
The two teams will play the second part of the week-end series on Sunday when Brockville heads to Carleton Place for an afternoon match-up.
“We’ve got to have some pride and come back and play the way we know we can play, so we’ll know if we have that,” Clarke said.
Following their win, the Braves had an eccentric celebration after defeating the four-time defending league champions.
“It happens all the time,” said Clarke. “Everyone wants to beat us and when they beat us, they’re pretty happy. That’s why it’s disappointing we lost the way we did tonight.”
For the players, the celebration means something more according to Knoblauch.
“Definitely something that will motivate us for Sunday.”
