By: Daniel Vazzoler
The Carleton Place Canadians continued their hot start to the season on Sunday, beating the Cornwall Colts 6-3 to move their record to 7-1-0 through their first eight games.
After the compete level of the Canadians was questioned in their loss to Kemptville last Sunday, captain Geoff Kitt called Sunday’s performance a complete and physical effort.
“We had a lot of compete and started finishing our checks this game, which is always good to see,” he said. “I thought we were laying off the hits in previous games, but [Sunday] we finished all our checks and won a lot of puck battles. That turned into a lot of offensive chances, as you can tell by the shot totals.”
The Carleton Place pressure limited the Colts attack in the first two periods, where the Canadians kept Liam Lascelle busy in the Cornwall net. Carleton Place had 33 shots in the first and second periods, while only allowing 10 shots against Michael Leach in that time.
Carleton Place was unable to translate its heavy advantage in shots into a lead on the scoreboard in the first period, but wasted no time in the second period with Tim Theocharidis breaking the deadlock 0:19 into the period.
Sam Allison doubled up the lead less than four minutes later with his first career CCHL goal.
“It felt really good to go in, it had been a while since I’ve scored a goal so it’s nice,” he said. “I was trying to get a shot off. I came in and a guy hit my stick a little bit and I just kind of tucked it in.”
The pretty goals continued after the Allison goal with Chris Theodore cutting the lead with a spectacular penalty shot goal before Justin Cmunt rifled a shot past Lascelle after a long stretch pass from Cade Townend.
Early in the third period, Theocharidis scored his second goal of the game with another power play wrist shot from the blue-line that eluded the Colts goaltender.
“Honestly, those shots I took – I saw an open lane and I took the shot,” he said. “If the play that we’re trying to do is there, I’m going to make the play. If I don’t have it, I’m either going to put it back behind the net to regroup or I’m going to shoot the puck.”
“I think Theo’s a very elite player and can make plays and score goals,” said Canadians coach Jason Clarke. “He’s done it in the past, this is his third year, we expect Theo to make plays like that and that’s exactly what he did.”
Connor Hill made it a 5-1 advantage prior to Troy Quinn and Theodore scored to trim the Canadians lead to two goals. Kitt salted away the victory with less than two minutes left in the game and made it a 6-3 score, getting a goal in his fifth straight game.
He said the chemistry he has with Cmunt and Sam Knoblauch has helped the three of them get off to a quick start to the season offensively.
“We’re just working really well together. We always have support for each other and we always know where each other are on the ice,” he added.
Carleton Place will look to continue the early success of the season on Friday when it travels to face the Brockville Braves. Clarke said the success of the team is based on whether or not the team competes hard – in games and in practices.
“That’s a big thing for us, the first week of the season we didn’t practice all that hard. We didn’t like our compete level all week in practice and we were just okay. Then last week leading up to Thursday, Friday, Sunday, I thought our practices were good. Guys were hard on it, guys played hard and we were good,” Clarke said.
