Canadians shut out the Bears

By: Daniel Vazzoler

The Carleton Place Canadians played the role of rude guests on Friday, picking up a 2-0 road win over the Smiths Falls Bears at the Smiths Falls Memorial Centre.

The Canadians defence ensured Connor Murphy wasn’t kept busy as he made 11 saves to pick up his first shut-out of the season. Murphy had chances earlier in the season to get his first shut-out but had the opposition score in the third period of two other games before finishing out the unblemished stat line on Friday.

Ryland Mosley opened the scoring 5:55 into the first period with the game’s only power play goal. Cade Townend sent the puck to the open wing for Sam Allison to skate on to and move towards the corner. Mosley found the open space in the slot and called for the pass right away. Allison slipped the puck past the Bears defender for Mosley and he one-timed the puck past Bradley Dobson for the early 1-0 lead.

It took until the second period for the Bears to test Murphy with their first shot of the game as the Canadians barely spent any time in their own zone during the opening 20 minutes.

The intermission did little to stall the Canadians momentum as Zach Tupker added to the Canadians lead just over eight minutes into the middle period. David Gagnon came hard on the fore-check and pressured the Bears defender to throw the puck into the middle of the ice. Tupker picked it off before dragging the puck into a shooting position and snapping a wrist shot past Dobson on the glove side.

Carleton Place now has a week between games with a two-game home-stand to end the month of September. The Canadians host the Pembroke Lumber Kings on Friday, while the Kemptville 73’s will visit the Carleton Place Arena the following Sunday.