Ottawa, Ontario – The Ottawa Jr. Senators dropped Game Two of the Bogart Cup Finals, 4-1, to the Carleton Place Canadians on Monday night at the Jim Durrell Sports Complex.
The series is now tied at one, with Game Three scheduled for Wednesday night in Carleton Place at 7:30.
Ottawa outshot Carleton Place 30-19, but received the loss after a hat-trick from Peyton Francis and a beautiful breakaway goal by Keenan Reynolds. Ottawa has their eight-game playoff winning-streak come to an end.
At the halfway point of the first period, Franics opened the scoring, converting on a 3-on-1 chance. Then Reynolds received Brett Throne’s stretch-pass and scored on a breakaway, making it 2-0 heading into the second period.
Ottawa Jr. Senators Head Coach Martin Dagenais said that the first goal played a difference. The puck took a weird bounce at center-ice, which sprung Francis on an odd-man-rush.
“I’m not sure if it hit their gloves or what happened, but our guys stopped playing. If you don’t hear a whistle, you have to come back. You have to play through it and find a way to bounce back.”
Dagenais said he liked his teams bounce-back performance in Game One, but says they didn’t battling hard enough in Game Two.
“We’re not battling hard enough to win this series. We weren’t bad, we limited them to 20-shots and we did a lot of good things but when things are not going our way, we’re trying to do to much.
Dagenais later pointed out that they only have two of their four lines playing well.
“Boulerice, Walsh and Jackson are all invisible right now. Conor Smart who was really good in the first two rounds has been invisible. Right now we have two lines going and we’re making dumb mistakes on the backend.”
Canadians goaltender Connor Murphy made 29-saves in their Game Two victory. Dagenais said they need to make things difficult for him going forward.
“He didn’t have to make any miraculous saves. You have to be patient as you’re not going to score five or six goals on them. If you get one or two by playing the right way, you live with that.”
Dagenais said his group will take the day-off today (Tuesday) before hitting the ice for Game Three on Wednesday night in Carleton Place.
