By: Daniel Vazzoler
The Carleton Place Canadians held off the Navan Grads come-back effort Friday night to pick up a 3-2 win at the Carleton Place Arena.
Ryland Mosley gave the Canadians an early lead in the first period, but goals from Ayo Adeniye and Andrej Hromic in the second period proved to be the difference in the victory. Vincent Bujold-Roux made his third start of the season, giving Connor Murphy a rare night-off, and also got his third win of the season with a 24-save effort.
Bujold-Roux was tested in the first period, where Canadians alternate captain Henry Enebak said the team didn’t get off to a quick start.
“We didn’t have the start that we wanted but we regrouped after the first period, came in (the dressing room), figured out what we needed to do and came out and played a lot better in the second and third and found our stride,” he added.
The middle period didn’t start the way Carleton Place would have wanted as Corson Searles scored 4:39 into the second period. Adeniye quickly – in more ways than one – responded to the goal and restored the lead with a rocket of a slap shot that beat Seth Carter and the scrum of bodies in front of the Navan goal.
“I saw low glove was open and I just went for it,” Adeniye said, reflecting on his second goal of the season. “(Elliott) McDermott was going to walk down and take a shot, but I kind of got vocal and asked for the puck. He gave it to me and made a great play, then I put it in the net.”
Hromic scored what ended up being the game-winning goal by deflecting Brett Thorne’s shot from the blue-line for the power play goal. Seva Losev scored late in the third period when Bujold-Roux attempted to steer Alderic Denis’ shot away from the front of the net, instead deflecting it off Losev’s chest and into the net.
Earlier in the day, the Canadians completed a trade with the Cornwall Colts to send a pair of young defencemen for veteran defender David Poirier and he made his Canadians debut on Friday.
“We needed some experience back on the left-side,” Canadians coach Jason Clarke explained. “I’ve coached David a couple of times in the Eastern Canada Cup and I really liked his personality. I liked him as a person, I liked him as a player.
“Some of our players played with him in Russia and thought he was a really good team-mate and a good guy off the ice. Obviously, he’s got a lot of skill and a lot of experience in our league and I think that was something we needed to move forward.”
The trade – and the CCHL2 Carleton Place team also playing on Friday – meant the Canadians were forced to play with only five defencemen.
“Legs are a little sore,” Adeniye confessed after the game, “but it was fun though, got a lot of ice time.”
Clarke added he liked the performance from the defence corps in Friday’s game, especially since they were down a man.
The Canadians and Grads are at near polar opposite places in the standings with the Canadians third in the CCHL and the Grads 12th, so some may be surprised by the one-goal difference on Friday but the Canadians as a team would not fall into that category.
“Navan is a lot better than people give them credit for,” Enebak expressed. “They’re very physical and they play their systems well so we knew it was going to be a hard-working, grinding game. We came out, answered the bell and got a win.”
Next up for Carleton Place is a special road game as it will be travelling to face the Oswego State Lakers and pay a visit to a pair of Canadians alumni in Travis Broughman and Lakers captain Devin Campbell.
“It will be a big test for us, playing against Oswego. We’re playing against 23- and 24-year-old men,” Clarke said. “We’ve got a lot of guys that are going to play Division-I next year and think they’re ready for it and we’re going to find out if they’re ready to play at the next level or not.”
