The Carleton Place Canadians Tier 2 hockey team clinched first place in the Richardson Division on Saturday night with a 4-3 win over the Westport Rideaus. Carleton Place enter the playoffs on a 7 game winning streak and will play the winner of a best-of-3 series between Athens and Renfrew in the CCHL2 quarter-finals.
Second period goals from Matthew Sheets and Alex Vala had the Canadians and Rideaus tied 1-1 heading to the 3rd. The Rideaus were in need of a win in regulation to pass CPC in the standings.
Adam James and Blake Kettyle scored to put the Rideaus up 3-1 with 10:33 left in the 3rd.
It was two 16 year old players that answered for the home side. First, Carter Holmes brought CP back to within a goal with 9:02 to go to set up a wild finish. Then, with 1:31 on the clock, James Lister scored the biggest goal of the season for the Canadians to tie the game 3-3.
Reece Bolton added a rare game winning empty net goal with one second remaining.
Vincent Bujold-Roux won his 4th straight start by making 21 saves.
The Canadians finish the regular season with a 37-13-2 record and are the 2nd overall seed in the CCHL2 playoffs. The four time defending champion Casselman Vikings finished the season 40-10-2 and have home ice advantage throughout the playoffs.
Carleton Place will play either Athens (29-19-4) or Renfrew (24-23-5) in the CCHL2 quarter-finals. They went 2-2 against both teams in the regular season.
The complete playoff schedule can be found on the CCHL2 website:
http://cchl_2.wttstats.pointstreak.com/leagueschedule.html?leagueid=2019.
