By: Daniel Vazzoler
The Carleton Place Canadians came into Sunday’s game against the Brockville Braves losing their past two games, but managed to shake off the poor performances and pick up a 4-2 win on home ice.
Carleton Place had a lead during last Sunday’s game against the Navan Grads before allowing four goals in the third period in the loss. A 4-0 loss on Friday to the Smiths Falls Bears was caused by a lack of effort and some poor discipline, according to members of the Canadians.
On Sunday, both of those things changed for the better, helping lead to the victory.
“I thought we had a lot better of a performance than on Friday and it was a good bounce-back game for us,” Canadians captain Elliott McDermott said. “Just a much better effort, we were all over it, we didn’t give them too much we played better defensively, and created a lot of scoring chances.”
The Canadians couldn’t do anything with those chances until the second period after falling behind late in the first period.
Ryan Bonfield took advantage of a Braves turnover at the side of the net and chipped it past Jake Begley to tie the game.
Cameron Patton gave Carleton Place a lead in the last two minutes of the second period with a power play goal. Ryland Mosley found Patton in the slot and an expertly executed no-look pass froze Begley and Patton tipped the puck past the Braves goalie for a 2-1 advantage heading to the intermission.
“We just had to stay positive after the first period,” McDermott said. “We thought we had a good period, we just had to make sure we kept on it and we kept getting chances to not let one mishap determine our game.”
The Patton power play goal was scored during a 5-minute penalty to William Torriani for checking to the head that carried over to the third period. The power play created a chance for the Canadians to generate some momentum in the third period.
A turnover at the Carleton Place blue-line quelled any thoughts of that with Troy Bowditch taking advantage of the misplay. Bowditch had a short-handed break-away and beat Devon Levi through the goalie’s legs to level the score just 0:31 into the final frame.
Carleton Place had a power play midway through the third period and Steven Townley ensured it was a successful one, tallying the game winning goal.
“Ben Brunette made a good breakout, (David) Gagnon was coming down and he slid it right under a defender’s stick to me,” Townley recalled. “I tried to shoot it around the defender that came out to block me and I was lucky it went in.”
Townley said he felt he should have capitalized on a few more chances in the game, but added getting on the board could help out in future games.
“Just getting back to scoring again, I’ll definitely be able to have more confidence when I have the puck.”
The Canadians are back in action on Monday when they face the Pembroke Lumber Kings at the Carleton Place Arena.
“We definitely need to stay out of the box again, we also just need to keep our shifts short and keep things simple. I know we’re going to be tired, we’re going to be a little bit mentally tired but we just need to be simple, move pucks and get pucks behind them,” said McDermott.
