Generals roll over Colts to grab series lead

Barrie Colts general manager and head coach Marty Williamson said before opening their OHL first-round playoff series against the Oshawa Generals that his team would have to be at its best to beat the best.

They were nowhere near that Tuesday evening.

Callum Ritchie and Dylan Roobroeck each scored once and added an assist as the heavily favoured Oshawa Generals dominated from start to finish en route to a convincing 5-1 Game 3 victory in front of a crowd of 3,652 at Sadlon Arena.

After a surprising split at home in the opening two games, the Eastern Conference and East Division regular season champion Generals stormed out of the gate, outshooting Barrie 26-4 in the opening period and 47-16 overall to help them grab a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.

The Generals, once again, dominated specialty teams’ play, scoring three times on seven power-play chances, while the Colts went scoreless on all six of theirs.

“The stat line, when you look at 0-for-6 and 3-for-7, it looks like the difference, but we weren’t prepared to play,” said Williamson. “It was a very poor game. I thought we were slow all over the ice. We had no forecheck going, we were just very reactive to whatever they were doing.

“It’s the total opposite of how we played the first two games. Play that way, and it’s pretty obvious it doesn’t work.”

Despite the poor start, one where they were pinned in their end for most of the period, the Colts only trailed 2-1 after 20 minutes. It might have been tied, but a late goal by Cole Beaudoin was ruled no goal after a quick video review showed line mate Riley Patterson was offside.

“We came out a little slow, and you can’t do that if you want to win,” said Colts forward Bode Stewart. “They’re a good team, so we have to come out with a lot of speed, we got to hit, got to shoot, and got to test this guy (goalie Jacob Oster). We got to come out a little harder next game.”

Barrie spent most of the early part of this contest killing penalties. After Matthew Buckley’s third power-play goal of the series put Oshawa up 1-0 midway through the first, the Colts answered right back a little more than three minutes later when Blair Scott’s point drive found its way past Oster.

Rasmus Kumpulainen would put the Generals back on top for good less than a couple of minutes later before a high sticking double minor to Grayson Tiller proved costly as Callum Ritchie made it 3-1 just 33 seconds into the second with another power-play marker.

Former Colts captain Connor Punnett made Barrie pay once again midway through the frame, this time on a two-man advantage.

“We seemed more interested in talking to them and trying to fight rather than play the game,” said Williamson, of the contest that featured jawing at centre ice in warmups between players. “I heard there was junk in warmup. That’s a veteran team over there. They know we’re young, and they tried to get under our skin, and our guys bit into it.

“We take a 10-minute misconduct, we lose a defenceman. We take a four-minute penalty, take another four-minute penalty. You’re just not going to win playing that way. Whether your penalty kill is going, or your power play is going, you’re not going to win the hockey game and to me, that was the bottom line. You can’t play hockey that way.”

The Colts had three power plays to start the third, but despite constant pressure in the Oshawa zone, couldn’t score. Roobroeck would seal it into an empty net with 1:20 remaining.

“Our power play is moving the puck well. We’re close. . . close,” said Stewart. “If a couple of bounces go our way, we’ll get a couple of more goals on the power play. The penalty kill for us is huge. We got to shut their power play down.

“They got a lot of skill guys on that unit, so we need to be focusing on the penalty kill. That’s what we need to do to win.”

If the Colts are to even up the series in Game 4 on Thursday night back at home, they’ll need to get a contribution from up and down the bench and avoid bad penalties.

Williamson says his club was just “careless.”

“Right from our penalties, right from our five-on-five play, our faceoff detail, we just weren’t a real good hockey team,” he said. “For whatever reason, you play two games, and you’re all of a sudden focused, and then you come back home, and why do you try and play different?

“That’s our (coaches’) job to try and figure it out, get us back on track and play like we did the first two.”

A loss on Thursday and the Colts could be facing elimination in back in Oshawa on Friday night.

"Being at home is huge,” said Stewart. “The crowd gets into it. We can really feed off that. We have a young group, but very resilient. We’re very tight, so we know what we need to do and we’re going to bring it to them next game.”

Game time Thursday is 7 p.m.

ICE CHIPS: After Sam Hillebrandt started the first two games in goal for Barrie, veteran Ben West got the call on Tuesday and made 42 saves. . . Some 48 hours after Beaudoin’s game-tying goal with eight seconds remaining on Sunday was ruled no goal, the string of bad results on reviews continued for the Colts with another pair in the opening period. There was a lengthy review for an offside on Buckley’s goal, that would stand. Then Beaudoin had a goal disallowed once again when Patterson was just a step offside. “I don’t like the offside, guys know they got to stop and strike the leg thing and, you know, it bit us on the rear there a little bit,” said Williamson. . .  Michael Derbidge who was injured early in Game 2 on Sunday, did not dress. Stewart moved up to the wing with Zach Wigle and Beau Jelsma, while the Colts dressed Justin Handsor in Derbidge’s place. The OHL Coaches Poll for the 2023-24 Regular Seasons was released and captain Beau Jelsma and Beaudoin were all over the Eastern Conference award winners. Beaudoin was named the Hardest Worker and Best Penalty Killer and placed second in voting for the Best Defensive Forward. Jelsma was named the Best Skater, Best Shootout Shooter and finished third in voting for Best Stickhandler.

banner image: Sam Hossack - Barrie Colts