Robert Lefebvre/Special to the Cornwall Standard-Freeholder
At the best of times, teams can appear to be undermanned against the Ottawa Junior Senators. They are, after all, the class of the CCHL, along with a certain group of Canadians from Carleton Place.
So, missing three veteran defencemen against the Junior Sens, yeah, that has the potential to get ugly pretty fast. And so it was for the Cornwall Colts at home on Thursday night, suffering a 5-2 setback at the hands of the Sens.
The Colts were without blueliners David Poirier, Alexander Monteleone and James Orr, but did have newly-acquired Alex Wilkins in the lineup. Still, as coach Ian MacInnis understated: “We’re a little short on the back-end.”
The two teams hadn’t met since Oct. 26, a 5-0 Ottawa win in Cornwall that was rather generous, score-wise, for the Sens. On Thursday, none of that, the Junior Sens deserving of everything they got.
Overall, the Sens are 4-0 against the Colts this season, outscoring Cornwall 19-6 in the process.
This one was over rather quickly, the Junior Sens taking a 3-0 first-period lead, a period in which they dominated, outshooting the Colts 16-5.
It was Owen Guy opening the scoring, exactly halfway through the period. Three times the Colts could have cleared the zone, and three times failed to do so. The third attempt landed on the stick of Guy, right in the high slot, and he fired the puck off the crossbar and in behind Mike Carr, making a rare start in goal for the Colts.
A little more than two minutes later, it was Finn Evans scoring on the power-play to put the Sens (who own the top power-play in the league) up by a pair.
Evans struck again with 2:40 left before intermission. This one wasn’t a power-play goal, but it sure did play the part, the Sens controlling the puck in the Cornwall zone, playing keep-away until Chiwetin Blacksmith (who leads the CCHL in assists) found Evans all alone with a perfect cross-ice pass. Evans had all kinds of time to find the wide-open net.
Guy scored his second of the game 7:30 into the second, with the Colts finally getting on the scoreboard at the 12:09 mark, Keegan Mulhearn with his 12th of the season.
For those of you who believe in comeback stories with happy endings, stop reading. The Sens answered just 29 seconds later, Darcy Walsh skating into a slapshot and blasting it past Carr high glove-side.
JD Pogue’s late power-play marker in the third capped the game’s scoring.
