The Barrie Colts are finding ways to win hockey games even when they’re not at their best.
Missing top defencemen Beau Akey and Tristan Bertucci and slow to get going through the opening 40 minutes, the Colts took a scoreless game into the third period and found a way to pull off an important 3-2 win over the Kingston Frontenacs, Tuesday night, at Sadlon Arena.
Backed by another stellar performance between the pipes by Ben Hrebik, Barrie (32-14-2-1) gutted out an eighth win in its last 10 games and ran its points streak to nine to move four points ahead of Kingston (28-13-5-2) atop the Eastern Conference standings.
“We got the flu bug going around,” said Colts’ general manager and head coach Marty Williamson of missing two key blueliners. “That’s what the 68-game schedule is all about. You need to find ways, whether it’s an overtime win, gutting it out, scoring a late goal, or here playing a good third period.
“We didn’t do a lot in the first two periods, but we were pretty good in the third and found a way to win a game.”
With 19 games remaining on the regular season schedule, the Colts also moved seven points ahead of the idle Niagara IceDogs for top spot in the Central Division.
“That’s a huge win for us, especially missing two key guys like that,” said captain Beau Jelsma, whose power-play marker gave Barrie a 2-1 lead midway through the third. “We’re kind of going through a little something here with guys under the weather, guys banged up a little bit.
“We showed a lot of character tonight. They came at us hard, and we stuck it out and got the win.”
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The Colts opened the scoring just five minutes into the third period.
With Cole Beaudoin parked in front, Jelsma cut across the slot and left the puck for Riley Patterson who wired a low drive past a screened Charlie Schenkel from inside the right faceoff circle to notch his team-leading 20th of the season. It was his third goal and 13th point over his last eight games.
Ethan Miedema would get that back 1:35 later, but Jelsma restored the lead on a pretty passing play midway through the frame with Barrie on the power play.
Anthony Romani slid it back to Owen Van Steensel at the point and he moved it ahead to Dalyn Wakely who quickly slid it to a waiting Jelsma in the slot and the Colts’ captain one-timed a drive under the left blocker of Schenkel to make it 2-1.
Scoreless on their first four power-play chances through two periods, Barrie finally connected on Miedema’s double minor.
“It’s nice to get the power play clicking,” said Jelsma, who had his first goal with the man advantage in 14 games. “I know that we struggled with that all year. It was a great find by Wakely, and I just had to put it in the net. A bit of a goalless streak lately, so I just had to put that one in.”
With Bertucci and Akey out, the Colts went with five forwards on one power-play unit, and the different look paid off.
“They pushed awfully hard against the boards, and we got them to expand and found Jelsma in the middle. That was really big for us. We like that play and Wakely likes to pass it to him. If we could get them running a little bit, it opened up the middle.
“They’re a good hockey team. They didn’t give an awful lot, and we tried not to give them a lot and they opened up once and we hit it.”
Beaudoin would make it 3-1 with 1:50 remaining on what would prove to be the eventual winner. Bode Stewart forced a turnover at centre ice and Emil Hemming hopped on the loose puck and walked in with Beaudoin on two-on-one.
The Utah NHL prospect would take a perfect feed from Hemming and fire it over the right pad of Schenkel.
The Fronts, though, weren’t quite done yet. Jacob Battaglia took a pass from the side of the net by Cedrick Guindon and ripped it past Hrebik in the slot to cut the lead to one with 34 seconds remaining.
Then in the dying seconds, Guindon and Battaglia both ripped shots over the net, but Barrie hung on.
“They (power play) came through for us and our blue line hung in there,” said Williamson of the win. “We lost two of our big clogs. One of them is on the ice for half a game, so we knew it was going to be a bit of an uphill battle without two of those guys.
“I thought the other guys accounted themselves well, and we got through it.”
Hrebik stopped 32 shots to improve his record to an impressive 16-4-2-0.
He robbed Guindon midway through the first in front and then stoned Emil Pieniniemi minutes later when he was allowed to walk in alone in front from the point.
“He’s been absolutely unbelievable for us,” said Jelsma. “He came in for us this year and he’s been just rock solid. We got two No. 1 goalies. He bails us out a lot, so it was great to see tonight.”
Only London and Saginaw have scored more goals this season than Kingston (212).
“They’re the hottest team in the league right now,” Williamson said of the visiting Frontenacs. “They’ve been scoring six goals a game on average over the last (10) games, so to play good defence and have Hrebik be outstanding again was key.
“Hrebik just never lets us down in there. We knew we were going to need him tonight. We knew we were going to be in our zone a little bit.”
The Colts will have a few days off to rest up after a busy stretch of four games in six nights. They host the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds in Barrie on Saturday night.
“It’s good for us because we can’t get too comfortable,” said Jelsma of the importance of keeping this current run going. “We’re ahead in the standings, but we can’t get too comfortable now that we’re at the top and we got teams chasing us.
“We just have to keep the foot on the pedal and keep going to work every night.”
Game time on Saturday night is 7:30 p.m.
ICE CHIPS: Tuesday night’s contest was a makeup game for an earlier Jan. 4 contest that was postponed due to bad weather. Attendance was 3,108. . . The Colts were without two of their best puck rushers in Akey and Bertucci. “Well, they’re two of the best in the league,” said Williamson. “To hear they weren’t feeling well wasn’t great news.” . . . Hemming’s assist ran his point streak to six games (4G, 7A). . . With his goal and assist, Beaudoin is starting to heat up again. The centre now has three goals and five points over four games.
