By: Daniel Vazzoler
The Carleton Place Canadians trailed 2-0 against the Hawkesbury Hawks early in the third period of Game Two of their CCHL semi-finals series, but three unanswered goals gave the Canadians a 3-2 win Saturday night.
After Sam Knoblauch and Zach Tupker erased Alec Taillon’s two goals, Josh Gagne scored late in the third period for the game-winning goal and a 2-0 series lead heading back to Carleton Place.
“Second game of the series, this one in Hawkesbury’s rink. It was a big game for them, trying to bounce back from [Friday’s] loss so it’s that we won, I think it gives us a lot of momentum,” Gagne said. “A lot of us were battling, maybe hoping it wasn’t going to O.T. and it happened to go our way. Got a good bounce and I happened to score, which was awesome, and it saves some energy for the next games.”
Gagne tallied the winner with less than five minutes remaining in regulation, scoring off the rush with a wonderfully placed shot to beat Matthew Petizian just under the cross-bar on the short side.
“I reversed (the puck) to Tooke and he gave it back to me. Just chipped it up to the forward and he tied up their defenceman which gave me the 2-on-1 with (Justin) Cmunt,” Gagne explained. “I saw the goalie cheating to slide across, so I ended up putting it upstairs and, yeah, it went in.”
Michael Leach continued his strong play in the post-season since coming in in Game Two against the Rockland Nationals in the previous series. He made 29 saves on Saturday and, according to head coach Jason Clarke, it was a case of misfortune for the goaltender on the two goals he allowed.
“I thought he played really well, he needed to make a couple real big saves,” praised Clarke. “The first goal was a fluke, I mean that was a very, very odd goal and, on the second one, there was a missed assignment on the face-off to begin with – that happens. But I thought Leach was fantastic.”
The Canadians controlled most of the first period, spending a lot of time in the attacking zone but didn’t have anything more than the sound of ringing iron to show for it – beating Petizian a handful of times, but finding the post on each one.
Taillon opened the scoring 16:26 into the game, knocking the bouncing puck up and over Leach for the goal after it deflected off a slew of bodies in front of the net.
Taillon added to the lead less than two minutes into the third period when he poked the puck towards the net following a face-off to the left on Leach in the Carleton Place zone. Tupker broke his stick on the draw and was unable to tie up Taillon in the slot. Leach tried to cover the rolling puck, but it slid through his legs and gave the Hawks a two-goal lead.
Knoblauch responded quickly to the second goal, cutting the deficit in half by jamming in the loose puck at the side of the net.
Just over five minutes later, the Tupker-twins connected for a 4-on-4 goal. Aidan Girduckis gained possession of the puck at neutral-ice and centred it to Ben Tupker. He and Zach entered the zone on a 2-on-2 rush when Zach got the puck on the left-wing side. He delayed before moving to the backhand, sliding the puck around Petizian to tie the game.
Gagne then scored with 4:50 remaining in regulation to complete the come-back.
“When you’re down by two, you can’t have guys being on their own game plan or trying to do too much and do things we normally don’t do because they feel like they’ve got to make an impact on the game. Well, the only way to make an impact on the game is to play within our structure and play harder. That’s exactly what happened [Saturday] and it was good to see us get rewarded,” Clarke said.
The series resumes on Tuesday at the Carleton Place Arena where the Canadians have a chance to take a 3-0 series lead. While some may think getting the win in Game Two helps eliminate some of the pressure heading into Game Three, Clarke doesn’t see it that way.
“I don’t think it eases any pressure at all. You know we’re going to get Hawkesbury’s best game of the series on Tuesday night so I think the pressure is on. We need to make sure we’re mentally prepared and ready to go for a war on Tuesday night. We need to be good, there’s no doubt about that.”
Games Three and Four will be another double-header with Game Three Tuesday night in Carleton Place before heading back to Hawkesbury Wednesday night. There is the potential for having three sets of back-to-back games with Games Five and Six scheduled to go Friday in Carleton Place and Saturday in Hawkesbury, should the series go that far.
Playoff Matchups Around the League
* = if necessary
BOLD = higher seed home game
Semi-finals
(1) CPC vs (4) HAW – CPC leads 2-0
GAME 1: CPC vs HAW – CPC 4-2
GAME 2: HAW vs CPC – CPC 3-2
GAME 3: CPC vs HAW – Tues., Apr. 3 – 7:15 p.m.
GAME 4: HAW vs CPC – Wed., Apr. 4 – 7:30 p.m.
GAME 5: CPC vs HAW – Fri., Apr. 6 – 7:45 p.m. *
GAME 6 – HAW vs CPC – Sat., Apr. 7 – 7:30 p.m. *
GAME 7 – CPC vs HAW – Mon., Apr. 9 – 7:15 p.m. *
(2) OJS vs (3) BRO – OJS leads 2-1
GAME 1: OJS vs BRO – OJS 6-1
GAME 2: BRO vs OJS – OJS 5-1
GAME 3: OJS vs BRO – BRO 3-1
GAME 4: BRO vs OJS – Fri., Apr. 6 – 7:30 p.m.
GAME 5: OJS vs BRO – Sat., Apr. 7 – 8:00 p.m.
GAME 6: BRO vs OJS – Tues., Apr. 10 – 7:30 p.m. *
GAME 7: OJS vs BRO – Wed., Apr. 11 – 7:30 p.m. *
Quarter-finals
(1) CPC vs (8) ROC – CPC wins 4-1
GAME 1: CPC vs ROC – CPC 6-2
GAME 2: ROC vs CPC – ROC 3-2 (OT)
GAME 3: CPC vs ROC – CPC 4-2
GAME 4: ROC vs CPC – CPC 3-0
GAME 5: CPC vs ROC – CPC 7-2
(2) OJS vs (7) PLK – OJS wins 4-2
GAME 1: OJS vs PLK – OJS 5-0
GAME 2: PLK vs OJS – OJS 6-2
GAME 3: OJS vs PLK – PLK 4-2
GAME 4: PLK vs OJS – OJS 4-0
GAME 5: OJS vs PLK – PLK 4-3
GAME 6: PLK vs OJS – OJS 6-1
(3) BRO vs (6) KAN – BRO wins 4-0
GAME 1: BRO vs KAN – BRO 5-3
GAME 2: KAN vs BRO – BRO 5-4 (OT)
GAME 3: BRO vs KAN – BRO 4-3
GAME 4: KAN vs BRO – BRO 4-2
(4) HAW vs (5) CRW – HAW wins 4-3
GAME 1: HAW vs CRW – HAW 4-3
GAME 2: CRW vs HAW – CRW 4-2
GAME 3: HAW vs CRW – HAW 4-3 (OT2)
GAME 4: CRW vs HAW – HAW 3-1
GAME 5: HAW vs CRW – CRW 3-2 (OT2)
GAME 6: CRW vs HAW – Sun., Mar. 25 – CRW 4-3 (OT)
GAME 7: HAW vs CRW – Tues., Mar. 27 – HAW 9-0
