By: Daniel Vazzoler
After giving up a 2-0 lead, the Carleton Place Canadians held on for a 3-2 over the Kanata Lasers on Friday night.
A dominant game in shots for Carleton Place, the Canadians finished the game with a 46-16 advantage in shots, didn’t turn in to a dominant game on the scoreboard. In fact, even after out-shooting Kanata 15-3 in the opening frame, Carleton Place saw itself head to the first intermission tied 0-0.
It wasn’t until the second period the Canadians opened the scoring, with John Copeland converting a Kanata turnover into a goal – his first since Dec. 12, a stretch of 16 games without finding the back of the net.
“My line has been giving me some good opportunities the past few games, it just felt really good to put one in the net,” he said. “First of all, I was pretty upset (when he missed the first chance), but then I decided to take my time with it and make a move. Then some holes opened up and I went upstairs with it and was able to put it in the net.”
After Zach Tupker scored a short-handed goal to make it a 2-0 lead, the Lasers responded with goals from Matthew Maggio and Connor Sleeth to tie the game before the end of the second period.
“The first goal was a really bad bounce, and the second one, I think we all know (Connor) Murphy would like to have that one back,” said Canadians coach Jason Clarke. “The most important part in that sequence was the push-back we had right after the second goal. The next two or three minutes after the goal we spent down in the offensive zone.”
Both Murphy and Gabriel Carriere were kept busy in the second period, with the goalies facing 11 and 16 shots respectively, but the Canadians were as dominant in the third period as they were in the first. A 15-2 advantage in shots rendered Murphy a spectator for much of the final 20 minutes of play.
Murphy perhaps had one of the better views in the Carleton Place Arena for Andrej Hromic’s game-winning goal scored in the third period of his first game back in the line-up since the Eastern Canada Challenge.
Hromic gathered the loose puck out of Elliott McDermott’s skates near the Kanata blue-line and took the puck down towards the goal-line. He then cut to the net on his backhand before a quick move to the forehand and snapped his shot across Carriere and beat the Lasers goalie high on the glove-side for the winning goal.
When asked to describe the feeling after scoring in his first game in nearly three months, Hromic didn’t have to dive deep into his vocabulary.
“Oh, awesome,” he said.
“To win with the team, there’s just no better feeling than that,” added Hromic.
Clarke opted to put Hromic on a line with Ben and Zach Tupker for Friday’s game, a decision that Hromic said had him thrilled when he saw that grouping.
“While my talents in the DJ booth were pretty solid, it was just great to be back on the ice, especially with those guys,” Hromic said in jest, referencing his other in-game role he took up for the Canadians. “They’re some of the best guys in the league so it was pretty awesome to play with them.”
“He’s a play-maker, gets into quiet areas and I think playing with the Tupkers was the right decision,” Clarke said.
Friday kicked off a week-end that will come close to resembling a play-off schedule with the Canadians playing three games in four days, all of which against potential play-off opponents.
“You’re going to play three games in four days during the play-offs, when the real season starts. We’re going to play three really good opponents. Kanata’s a very, very well-coached team and is playing good hockey right now.
“Then we’re playing Smiths Falls (Bears), another good hockey team that’s well-coached, and then we play Ottawa (Jr. Senators) on Monday. There should be no excuses at all. You’re going to play three games in four days during the play-offs, we’ve just got to be mentally and physically ready to go and our preparation is the most important thing moving forward through this week-end.”
Both Sunday’s game against Smiths Falls and Monday’s game against Ottawa will be 3 p.m. starts at the Carleton Place Arena thanks to the Family Day Monday.
