By: Daniel Vazzoler
The Carleton Place Canadians eked out a 5-4 win over the Nepean Raiders at the Carleton Place Arena on Sunday.
A look at the standings heading into the match-up would have made people expect a more lopsided score-line with over 40 points separating the teams at opposite ends of the standings – Canadians in first, Raiders last in the CCHL.
“I think we came out and just realized they weren’t a top team and we played down to their level,” Canadians captain Cade Townend said. “We didn’t start the way we wanted to, they got up one early, but we battled back, stuck to our systems and we found a way to come out on top.”
What helped Carleton Place fight its way in front was the power play.
Normally a sore-spot on home ice, the Canadians went 3-for-5 against Nepean on the man-advantage on Sunday.
“We were able to find seams and get pucks into dangerous areas,” Carleton Place coach Jason Clarke stated. “When we had some chances, we had a strong net-front presence and their goaltender really couldn’t see what was going on.”
Peyton Francis scored in back-to-back games, after not scoring in eight games, to tie the game midway through the first period with a power play goal. After the face-off win in the attacking zone, Francis set himself up in the slot and one-timed the Ryland Mosley pass past Olivier Pimparé-Charbonneau to level the score.
Ben Tupker gave the Canadians their first lead of the game as he outwaited the Nepean goaltender before putting the puck in the net.
Nepean and Carleton Place traded goals 0:16 apart in the second period to make it a 3-2 game going into the third period.
Josh Shimizu scored on a penalty shot with the Raiders short-handed, as he beat Vincent Bujold-Roux through the five-hole to briefly tie the game. On that same Canadians power play, Alex Bourhas fought his way to the front of the net to get the loose puck and scored on the rebound to restore the one-goal advantage.
Bujold-Roux had his time in net come to an early end after allowing the tying goal to Cole Lavoie 2:45 into the third period, but his team-mates bailed him out with Reece Bolton tallying a third power play goal as he snapped his shot past Pimparé-Charbonneau’s blocker.
A few minutes later, the Canadians allowed Lavoie to score a power play goal of his own to once again tie the game.
Zach Tupker scored the game-winning goal as he chased down a loose puck and dove over a defender’s stick to poke the puck through Pimparé-Charbonneau while in mid-air with just 5:30 remaining in the game.
The two teams are set to face-off again on Friday at the Carleton Place Arena and Clarke has already pointed out something his team needs to improve upon during the week of practice leading up to the game.
“We need to really sharpen up on making better decisions when we go back and pick up pucks to make the easy play. We complicated a lot of simple plays and, it’s going to happen during the year, we need to move on, take the positives and work on a few other things.”
Carleton Place mixed up its forward lines heading into Sunday’s game, perhaps in an effort to balance out the offence, but according to Clarke it was just to change things up, he said.
“I don’t think it hurt us at all on the offensive side of things. I think guys had a lot of good opportunities, it was just something to mix things up a little bit and see where we’re at. Offensively I thought all the lines played well.”
Friday’s game will present the Canadians new lines to improve on the defence side of things, while the Raiders will look to take their game that one extra step in order to try and get their second win on the season against the Canadians.
