Thomas Stewart’s return to the place he called home for most of his junior hockey career to face his former team turned out to be far from what the Barrie Colts overager hoped it would be.
Actually, Sunday night’s 5-2 loss to the Oshawa Generals at the Tribune Communities Centre left the defenceman seething after the game.
“To be honest, I am pretty pissed off,” said the 21-year-old, who spent two-and-a-half seasons with the Generals after being originally drafted by Barrie and then dealt to Oshawa in October of 2021. “You never want to lose to your old team, especially not like that. There was a lot of emotion (coming back). You just don’t want to lose.”
Penalty trouble would spell doom for the Colts and their league-worst penalty kill in this one.
After a good start, Barrie (23-29-3) ran into penalty trouble late in the first period and by the time the four man-advantages had come to an end just five minutes into the second, the Generals held a commanding 3-0 lead on power-play goals by Rasmus Kumpulainen, Luke Torrance and Beckett Sennecke and all the momentum.
Stuart Rolofs added to the Oshawa lead less than a minute later to bring an end to Ben West’s night in the Barrie net after four goals on 20 shots. Sam Hillebrandt would stop 22 of 23 shots the rest of the way.
“It was careless penalties,” said Colts head coach Marty Williamson. “I thought we came out fantastic. All four lines gave good shifts. We went through the rotation about three times and everybody was good. We had a good 12 minutes and then we take some careless penalties and all of a sudden the momentum goes on their side.
“They killed the first one, but can’t kill the second or the third. Some of them are lucky breaks and that’s just what happens, you get a little careless.”
The Colts, who came in looking for their third win of the week, pushed late in the third, but Oshawa (29-19-7-2) held on to clinch a playoff berth and move one point ahead of the Mississauga Steelheads for fourth place and home ice advantage in the first round of the Eastern Conference playoffs.
“There was no quit in us,” said Williamson. “I thought we battled. Our five-on-five game was pretty solid, we just struggled with specialty teams tonight.”
The Colts got a big scare early in the second when forward Cole Beaudoin took a high-rising shot in the face in front of his own net and quickly sped off the ice gushing blood from his nose.
The top prospect for this year’s NHL Draft would miss the remainder of the period, before returning.
“He got a bunch of stitches and I didn’t think there was any way he was going to play in the third period,” Williamson said of Beaudoin. “The courage of this kid is unbelievable. He wanted to help us try and claw back into this thing. We stitched him up and plugged up his nose and put a cage on him, and he’s back out there.”
After Connor Punnett, who was acquired from Barrie at the trade deadline, had a goal called back in the second that would have made it 5-0, Beau Jelsma finally got the Colts on the board at 13:16.
Barrie nearly cut the lead in half late on two great chances in the middle frame. Roenick Jodoin streaked in alone and was stopped by Jacob Oester and then Oester snubbed Bode Stewart on the rebound in front.
As so often happens, the Generals would race right down the ice and Kumpulainen beat Hillebrandt for his second of the game.
“That was a typical hockey play,” said Williamson. “We get the breakaway with (Roenick) and then the rebound goes to Bode. We get two good chances to make it 4-2 and of course we don’t and they come down and get the goal with 41 seconds left to make it 5-1.
“That’s kind of the way it goes sometimes. We caused our own problems by giving up the three goals on the power plays and that’s hockey.”
Ryan Patterson scored his rookie league-leading 24th goal with 3:11 remaining to cut the lead to three as the Colts pressured late and refused to roll over.
“You want to feel good about the game you played. Even when you’re losing, even when you’re down, you don’t quit,” said Thomas Stewart. “I don’t think we have quitters on this team and that’s something that I’ve had to deal with in the past and I don’t have that here, and that’s what I love about this team.”
The Colts will look to bounce back on Wednesday when they hit the road to take on the Sudbury Wolves.
“We knew the hill was awfully high when you take penalties like that,” Williamson said of the whole they dug themselves. “It’s just lessons and these guys are kids. We’re coming off a couple of wins and we were just a little bit careless in a couple of areas. We’ve made good progress in our game, but they have to understand that we need just about everything going. . . We got to be detailed, and you can’t be taking penalties like that. Otherwise, we don’t win hockey games.
“So, if anything, it’s just a lesson and we have a big one against Sudbury midweek and they’re the same kind of team as this that if you make careless mistakes, they take advantage of them.”
Game time at Sudbury Community Arena is 7:05 p.m.
The Colts will get Monday off before returning to practice Tuesday.
“We’re at the point of the season where the guys like playing more than they like practicing now,” said Williamson. “So, as long as they’re not all back-to-back, you can handle a schedule like this.”
ICE CHIPS: Oshawa outshot Barrie 42-24. Pulling West had nothing to do with his play. “Whether they were going to count that (Punnett) goal or not count the goal, maybe just changing the momentum might give us a little bit of something,” said Williamson of the move. “I don’t blame Ben, one of them went off us. It was a tough game for him, because we took the penalties and put a lot of heat on him.” . . Oshawa finished 3-for-4 on the power play, while Barrie 0-for-1. . . After returning from his nearly two-month ankle injury, Chris Grisolia got the night off. “We were advised by the doctors where this was our only back-to-back game for a while and if we can get him through this, I shouldn’t have to worry about anything,” said Williamson. “So, it was strictly a precaution.”
banner image: Josh Kim, Barrie Colts
