By: Daniel Vazzoler
The Carleton Place Canadians picked up a 4-0 win on Friday over the Rockland Nationals as the Canadians travelled to the CIH Arena to return home with the win.
The shots tell the story of the game as Carleton Place dominated Rockland from start to finish – outshooting the Nationals 56-17 in the game, including a 40-9 difference in the opening two periods.
Jeremie Forget stopped all 17 shots he faced and four different goal scorers propelled the Canadians to victory. On the offensive side, Sam Knoblauch paced the team with a goal and two assists while Zach Tupker – fresh off an appearance in the CJHL Prospects game on Wednesday with his brother Ben – added a goal and assist on Friday.
Carleton Place took advantage of the shooting barrage against Sean Storr early in the first period. Tim Theocharidis opened the scoring 8:49 into the game after taking the Z. Tupker pass from behind the net and wristed a shot through Storr for the 1-0 lead.
Carleton Place put the game out of reach in the second period with three goals scored in a span of 5:49.
Haydn Hopkins started the scoring run less than four minutes into the middle period. Aidan Girduckis made a lovely play to hold the puck in the attacking zone, racing to the blue-line and spinning past the Nationals forward. He dropped the puck off for Keenan Reynolds, who then spotted Hopkins across the ice. Hopkins settled down the puck before snapping his shot past Storr’s shoulder for the goal.
Knoblauch extended the lead 1:10 later as he came flying off the bench and took the pass from Geoff Kitt. From just outside of the right-wing face-off dot, Knoblauch beat Storr on the short-side with a speeding wrist shot.
Zach wrapped up the scoring near the middle of the second period. He made a quick move in the slot to get away from Wade Brennan in the slot and get open for the pass from Ben. Zach got the shot off quick and slid it past Storr on the blocker side for the 4-0 advantage.
The two teams face off against each other again on Sunday at the Carleton Place Arena as the Canadians begin a stretch of 10 games at home in the final 13 games of the season – including playing the next four games at home.
