By: Daniel Vazzoler
For the third consecutive home game, the Carleton Place Canadians found themselves trailing on home ice by multiple goals on Friday against the Ottawa Jr Senators and, unlike the previous two times, they couldn’t overcome the deficit in a 4-1 loss.
The game started poorly for the Canadians, giving up the game’s first goal to Connor Smart just 1:33 into the first period, and never turned around for Carleton Place.
“We weren’t very good,” Canadians coach Jason Clarke said. “Ottawa handed it to us pretty good, they looked like a well-oiled machine and we looked like a high school hockey team.”
Throughout the game, when the Canadians had a chance to start building momentum, the Jr Senators shut down any opportunity and never gave Carleton Place a breath to gather itself and get back into the game.
From the drop of the puck, Ottawa looked like the better team on the ice and the players freely admitted what the cause of that was.
“I don’t think the boys were as dialed in as we needed to be before the game,” defenceman Ayo Adeniye confessed. “Sometimes we feel a little buzz going and we’re ready to play, I don’t think we came out with that today.”
“Games against OJS are always circled on the calendar and our effort [Friday] doesn’t dictate that,” added forward Keenan Reynolds. “We’ve just got to prepare better, come out to play and just realize that any time we play (Ottawa) it’s going to be a war because they’re a well-coached team, they’re a good team and they’re not going to let us take a win easy.”
Friday wasn’t a busy game for either goaltender as both Ottawa’s Francis Boisvert and Carleton Place’s Connor Murphy faced 24 shots in the game, but both were difference-makers in the game.
While there may have been some times where it looked like Murphy fought the puck on Friday – including the play that led to Andrew Remer scoring Ottawa’s third goal late in the second period – he made a number of key saves as well that kept the Canadians close enough for a potential comeback in the third period.
“We came out of the locker room for the third period super excited, ready to try to come back, just didn’t fall (our way),” Adeniye said.
Carleton Place may have been ready to try and come back on Friday, but Clarke said after Monday’s over-time win against the Cornwall Colts that the Canadians can’t be in a position where they need to come from behind to win and he delivered the message again after the loss to Ottawa.
“You’re playing at home in front of your hometown (fans), playing against the team that beat you in the finals last year and it was the first home game (against them) and you’ve got half the team ready or even wanting to battle,” he said. “It’s definitely troublesome for sure.
“We beat Nepean (Raiders) on a Sunday and then come back here on Monday not prepared, not ready to go and don’t play well and have to come from behind. You can’t when you’re playing a good, well-coached team like Ottawa.”
Good or bad, the Canadians don’t have a lot of time to dwell on Friday’s effort – or, depending on who you ask, lack thereof – as they are back in action on Sunday against one of the top teams in the CCHL, the Hawkesbury Hawks, who have already come to the Carleton Place Arena and left with a 4-3 win back on Sept. 9.
“We don’t lose at home, that’s part of what it means to be a Carleton Place Canadian,” Reynolds said. “We’ve got to re-evaluate and come back Sunday ready to play against Hawkesbury. We owe them.”
For Clarke, he said the message before that game is going to be an easy one for him to think of.
“It’s just about effort and pride. When you line up beside somebody, you’ve got to know that you’re not going to allow that guy to beat you in any facet of the game on any shift, period or anything and that’ll be the message. You can prepare as much as you want but if you don’t have your foundation, which is work ethic and pride, it doesn’t really matter what your game plan is.”
