By: Daniel Vazzoler
The Carleton Place Canadians used a three-goal second period to beat the Brockville Braves on Sunday to wrap up a week-end home-and-home series against Brockville with a 4-2 victory on home ice.
After losing to the Braves on Friday, Carleton Place came into Sunday’s rematch at the Carleton Place Arena a motivated team as some Canadians players talked about how Brockville celebrated its win following the game.
“After such a letdown in the third (on Friday), we were just hungry to get back at it and play this team again,” said Canadians captain Geoff Kitt. “We just really wanted the victory and I thought everyone battled really hard.”
The second period looked like it wasn’t going to go its way as Carleton Place took 10 minutes in penalties and had another penalty carry over from the first period. However, the league’s worst power play (Brockville) and the league’s top penalty kill (Carleton Place) performed as expected – Brockville went 0-for-5 on the man advantage in the middle frame.
Goals from Sam Allison, Connor Hill and Jack Clark in the middle period flipped the score to a 3-1 Carleton Place advantage going into the third period. According to Canadians coach Jason Clarke, nothing changed between the first and second periods except for the results.
“We dominated the first period, I thought, it was just a bad bounce for a two-on-one (that led to the Brockville goal),” he said. “(Yaniv) Perets played a very, very solid game in the first period. We just had to make sure that we had more of the same in the second period. We just continued to get pucks to the net. We had traffic, we had second and third chances, the kids played well.”
Fred Allaire opened the scoring 1:17 into the first period and Andrew Jarvis responded to the three unanswered goals with a Brockville power play goal with 3:07 left in the third period.
The Canadians quickly responded to it less than 30 seconds later, courtesy of Sean Ross.
“It was very big, you’ve got to be able to respond after a very questionable call on a penalty – the refereeing was very subpar all game long – so for them to score that power play goal and for us to answer right back shows you the mentality we had,” Clarke said. “We were on it, we were mentally tough and physically tough and we managed pucks well.”
For Ross and Clark, the goals they scored were their firsts in the CCHL.
“Felt great to just get it off my back, looking forward to getting many more,” Clark said. “(Arik) Breton got it going up the wall and I knew that it was just a two-on-one. Their defenceman committed to him too much, he passed the puck to me and I had a mini-breakaway. I just put it on my backhand and in the net.”
With Jarvis’s goal, Clark’s ended up being the game-winning goal and the goal from Sean Ross was an important insurance goal.
“If it wasn’t for my line-mates, I wouldn’t have got it,” Ross said. “‘Chiller’ (Hill) got in on the forecheck and got that hit like we do in practice and I just did my job and put the puck in the net.”
“Jack’s had numerous chances to score some goals and he was finally rewarded with a really good play and it was good to see that because he’s played very, very well since he’s been here,” said the Canadians coach.
“Sean Ross, with any luck, may have scored two or three goals over the week-end. He got himself in the right areas and used his size and speed to get into the dirty areas and get himself into open positions. I really liked both boys’ games,” Clarke continued.
Michael Leach got the start for the Canadians and he made 26 saves in the win, including a number of cross-crease stops at important moments when the game was still to be decided.
“I was just tracking the puck and doing my best to get over there to take up as much of the open net as I can,” Leach said.
Clarke praised his goaltender after the game, saying it was “the best goaltending game that we’ve got all season long.”
Carleton Place is back in action on Thursday when they travel to face the Cornwall Colts before they stay on the road to battle with the Hawkesbury Hawks on Friday. The Hawks and Canadians then return to Carleton Place for a Sunday matinee meeting.
