By: Daniel Vazzoler
The Carleton Place Canadians were a motivated team on Sunday against the Hawkesbury Hawks after losing to the Hawks two days prior, and that motivation turned into a 6-1 win for Carleton Place.
Players and coaching staff called Friday’s 2-1 loss to Hawkesbury “disappointing”, which made Sunday’s win that much better.
“It was good to see the guys bounce back,” Canadians coach Jason Clarke said. “They beat us on Friday night, they scored first during the game, so it was good to see us get off to a good start after that.”
Zachary Fournier opened the scoring with a power play goal that appeared to get the Hawks excited, but the Canadians handled the rush of adrenaline Hawkesbury had after the goal. Carleton Place kept pushing and a nice two-on-one rush with Ben Tupker and Jack Clark put the Canadians on the board with Clark’s goal.
“It gave us some confidence going into the second period,” assistant captain Tim Theocharidis said. “If we didn’t, I’m sure we would have been fine and keep the gas pedal to the floor.”
Carleton Place scored a pair of eye-catching goals in the second period to extend its lead to 3-1. New-comer Haydn Hopkins tipped in the pass from Connor Hill 0:55 into the period for his first goal in his first game with the Canadians. Near the middle of the period, Travis Broughman took the hit to make the play and move the puck ahead for Sam Allison to set up Peyton Francis with a two-on-one goal.
“(Hopkins) had a goal and an assist with getting here late on a plane from British Columbia and not really knowing the guys and his line-mates and having practiced yet,” Clarke said. “I thought he played pretty well, he was physical and plays a 200-foot game. He played in Erie last year, won an OHL Championship and played under Chris Knoblauch and plays the game the right way.”
The third period saw Francis get his second goal of the game surrounded by a pair of goals from Aidan Girduckis for his first and second goals of the season.
“Felt good to get my first goals of the year. It’s been 12 games now and it’s just nice to get that off my shoulders,” he expressed. “I tried not to think about it and just play my game and eventually it would come.”
“‘Ducky’ should probably have a few more goals, just hasn’t had a lot of luck,” Clarke added. “I thought he worked really hard [on Sunday]. He knew he wasn’t very good on Friday and we had a discussion about it. It was really good to see him come out and have a really good, solid game after having just a sub-par performance on Friday.”
Another player who responded from a coach-proclaimed sub-par performance was goaltender Jeremie Forget as he made 19 saves in the victory.
“I thought Forget played really well,” Clarke said. “I thought he made the stops he had to and the goal that was scored was an in-tight rebound where a D-man should have boxed his guy out.”
The previous two games, Carleton Place felt it out played its opponents but was unable to get rewarded offensively. Clarke said the ‘puck-luck’ the Canadians didn’t get those two games came to them on Sunday to help them capitalize on the chances they continued to create.
“Just re-ensured for us that we know we can score goals and we should be doing it night in and out,” Theocharidis added.
Carleton Place will look to continue its offensive prowess in the first installment of the Hwy 15 Battle as the Canadians will travel to face the Smiths Falls Bears on Friday night.
