By: Daniel Vazzoler
The Carleton Place Canadians had to come from behind in Wednesday’s Game Three of the CCHL quarter-finals against the Rockland Nationals, but were able to pick up a 4-2 victory to take a 2-1 series lead.
Despite outshooting the Nationals 21-4 in the first period, Canadians head coach Jason Clarke said he felt his team got off to a slow start on Wednesday – and he let his team know about it at the end of the first period.
“(The message) was about beating the guy beside you, that’s what hockey is all about,” he said. “Hockey’s about winning one-on-one battles and we spent some time in the offensive zone during the first period, but we didn’t win those battles to get second and third chances. Rockland did a really good job of keeping us to the outside and boxing us out.”
“Obviously Clarke wasn’t too impressed, he came in and was a little bit heated, but that’s to be expected,” Canadians captain Geoff Kitt said of the first intermission speech from the coach. “We’ve got to be ready to go and we weren’t. I let the boys know about it a little bit, too. We’re a good team, so we just had to get back to our basic structure.”
Even with the heavy advantage in shots, the Canadians went into the break trailing 1-0 after allowing the second short-handed goal of the series – goals Clarke describes as “back-breakers” – to Rockland.
Alex Robert picked off the lead pass at the Canadians blue-line and had a clear lane to the net with the Carleton Place players standing around, appearing to assume the break-out play was going to be made. Robert made no mistake on the breakaway, beating Michael Leach with a snap shot just over the pad on the blocker-side.
After the period, Clarke delivered his message that reverberated through the halls at the Carleton Place Arena but even that didn’t look to have the immediate impact that likely would have been expected from the coaching staff to start the second period.
Carleton Place continued to struggle with the puck as Rockland kept applying pressure to the home team, getting an early power play for its efforts.
That was when some of the momentum started to change.
The Canadians killed off the penalty and didn’t allow Rockland to get many good opportunities towards Leach. Shortly after killing the penalty, Carleton Place was down in the attacking zone and a deflected shot ended up on Kitt’s tape with an open net to look at.
“It was a really good play by (Sam) Allison and (Josh) Gagne to get the puck to the net, and then I won a battle in front and just tapped it in,” he said. “I tried to get the crowd going, get everyone back into it because there was not much energy.”
The tie game last 1:59 when Benjamin Pruneau restored the Rockland advantage, scoring off a set play from the face-off win by Drew Shields.
Justin Cmunt responded quickly to the goal, snapping a wrist shot past Sean Storr from the slot before Travis Broughman gave the Canadians the lead late in the middle period.
“It was huge, the boys needed to step up and I think we started winning battles and overcame a lot of stuff in that period,” Broughman said about getting the lead late in the period. “It was a lot of work in the ‘D’-zone (to start the goal), guys were playing good man-on-man and we got a nice break out of it. It was a little give-and-go with me and Allison then to the back of the net.”
Zach Tupker added some insurance late, capping off a 2-on-0 rush with his brother Ben, one-timing the pass over a sliding Storr to get the two-goal lead and help seal the victory.
The two teams won’t have much time to think about Game Three as they are playing on back-to-back nights, with Game Four going Thursday in Rockland at the CIH Arena at 7:30 p.m.
“You want to have home ice advantage, we’ve won both our games at home and they managed to win theirs at home. We’ve got to try and steal one there (Thursday),” Kitt said. “It’s two games in two nights … so we’ve got to get out to a hot start and try to get on them quick to not let them establish a presence in our defensive zone. Just keep taking it to them and don’t give them that glimmer of hope that they’re still in the series.”
Playoff Matchups Around the League
* = if necessary
BOLD = higher seed home game
(1) CPC vs (8) ROC – CPC leads 2-1
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 – Thurs., Mar. 22 – 7:30 p.m.
GAME 5: CPC vs ROC – Sat., Mar. 24 – 7:15 p.m. *
GAME 6: ROC vs CPC – Sun., Mar. 25 – 2:30 p.m. *
GAME 7: CPC vs ROC – Tues., Mar. 27 – 7:15 p.m. *
(2) OJS vs (7) PLK – OJS leads 3-1
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 – Thurs., Mar. 22 – 7:30 p.m. *
GAME 6: PLK vs OJS – Sun., Mar. 25 – 7:00 p.m. *
GAME 7: OJS vs PLK – Tues., Mar. 27 – 7:30 p.m. *
(3) BRO vs (6) KAN – BRO leads 3-0
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 – Thurs., Mar. 22 – 7:30 p.m.
GAME 5: BRO vs KAN – Fri., Mar. 23 – 7:30 p.m. *
GAME 6: KAN vs BRO – Sun., Mar. 25 – 6:30 p.m. *
GAME 7: BRO vs KAN – Tues., Mar. 27 – 7:30 p.m. *
(4) HAW vs (5) CRW – HAW leads 2-1
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 – Thurs., Mar. 22 – 7:30 p.m.
GAME 5: HAW vs CRW – Fri., Mar. 23 – 7:30 p.m. *
GAME 6: CRW vs HAW – Sun., Mar. 25 – 7:00 p.m. *
GAME 7: HAW vs CRW – Tues., Mar. 27 – 7:30 p.m. *
