Carleton Place, Ontario – The Ottawa Jr. Senators (7-6) defeated the Carleton Place Canadians (10-3-1), 4-1 at the Carleton Place Arena on Friday night.
Right off the bat, Ottawa opened the scoring just over a minute into the game. Conor Smart smacked in a rebound for his third goal of the season. Later on in the first period, Noah Rowe fired a hard wrist-shot top corner on the power-play, giving the Jr. Senators a 2-0 lead heading into the first intermission.
Prior to Ottawa’s second goal, Head Coach Martin Dagenais called a timeout right before they started their five-on-three man-advantage.
“It’s not something we’ve practiced a lot so we just wanted to get the guys on the same page,” said Dagenais. “We were up 1-0, it’s always a close game so I figured that if we scored here it’s 2-0 and it was an important moment in the game and it paid off.”
In the second period, Keenan Reynolds made no mistake on one of the Canadians few odd-man rushes, scoring on a centering pass by Andrej Hromic. With 45 seconds remaining in the period, Andrew Remer crashed the Carleton Place net and potted in his third of the year to put Ottawa back in front by two heading into the second intermission.
“He (Remer) works his but off and that Remer, Ethan Manderville, Colin Marshall line is very good because they’re big bodies and we just told them to go to the net more which is how they scored the third goal. That was huge for us.”
Darcy Walsh scored the empty netter in the final minutes of the game. That extends his point streak to seven games (6 G / 3 A).
One of the main stories behind this win is that Ottawa was able to play well in the very small and tight Carleton Place rink. The Canadians build their team around there own barn with big physical players. Martin Dagenais says that he was surprised with how his new guys played in this type of rink.
“We talked about this after the Navan game because Navan’s rink is exactly the same size. Last year, we came here for game four (of 2017-18) and we lost and were out-shot with a way better team on paper. So for our guys to come in here and win is impressive.”
The shots were 24-24. Francis Boisvert made 23 saves and was a key component to the Jr. Senators win.
“His rebound control was really good when we were in trouble. We didn’t give the much neutral-zone mistakes, breakaways and three-on-two’s. Guys were very structured tonight and I think it helped Frank (Boisvert) out,’ said Dagenais.
Owen Cole extended his point streak to three-games (2 G / 2 A) after two assists tonight. Boulerice also extends his point streak to two games with an apple.
The Jr. Senators next game is Saturday October 13th, 2018 when they host the Kemptville 73’s at the Jim Durrell Sports Complex.
