The Barrie Colts’ 12-game point streak ended after a familiar lack of discipline propped up Friday night at Sudbury Community Arena.
Daniel Berehowsky and Jan Chovan scored on the power play, and Bjorn Bronas made 35 saves to help the Sudbury Wolves knock off the Colts 6-3 and hand them their first regulation loss since a 5-3 loss here back on October 24.
On a night where things weren’t going their way, a steady run to the penalty box by the OHL’s most penalized team certainly didn’t help.
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Sudbury (7-17-1-0) scored twice on seven chances with the man advantage, with both power-play goals coming right after Barrie’s William Schneid had cut its lead to 3-2 late in the second period.
“Over the last little stretch, we’ve been getting a lot of good bounces, and it kind of seemed the bounces went against us tonight,” said head coach Dylan Smoskowitz. “Obviously, you don’t want to take so many penalties, and maybe a couple of the calls were a little soft, but still, we’ve got to do a better job of keeping our heads and staying disciplined.
“Then you get a bounce off a guy’s back that goes in the back of the net, and a goal against with .3 seconds left. It’s these tiny little bounces, but again we didn’t do ourselves any favours with the lack of discipline.”
Kashawn Aitcheson scored a pair on the power play for the Colts, but it was Barrie that paid the price for a familiar lack of discipline.
“You’re definitely going to pay,” Smoskowitz said. “It’s just penalties that are not winning penalties. We talk a lot about that with our group. You got winning penalties and losing penalties. If you’re going to save a goal, or stick up for a teammate, those are the ones you’ll kill off. The ones your team will rally around you.
“It’s these loser penalties. These retaliation penalties. These penalties 200-feet from our net. Unnecessary penalties that have nothing to do with having a positive impact on the game. Those are hard to kill off. They deflate a team. They ruin the momentum that you have, and we’re finding ourselves taking too many of those.”
A roughing penalty on Bode Stewart late in the second period and an interference call on Cole Beaudoin early in the third both proved costly.
On a play where Barrie goalie Arvin Jaswal appeared to let up after covering the puck up, perhaps thinking time had expired, Berehowsky fished it out and deposited it into the net just before the buzzer sounded to end the period.
“I got to talk to Jazz about that,” said Smoskowitz after the game. “I don’t know if he thought (time) was going to expire, or he just couldn’t control the puck,” said Smoskowitz. “You keep giving up these penalties, you can’t blame your goalie. It’s so hard on the goalie to be killing these. So hard on the PK guys to be killing these.”
Then, with Beaudoin in the box at 1:10 of the third, Berehowsky fed Chovan in the slot, and the Slovakian import fired a one-timer past Jaswal, and it was 5-2 just like that.
“You take a penalty like that, and they score at the end of the period, it’s a way different atmosphere in the room if you go down a goal after you scored a goal to make it a one-goal game,” said Smoskowitz. “Guys could have been pumped up, energized, and excited. We could have put them on their heels a little bit, and all of a sudden, it’s a two-goal (Sudbury) lead for them.
“They feel pumped up and went to the room with momentum. It just kind of flip-flopped the game for us a little bit there.”
Kieron Walton, with a pair, Rowan Henderson and Blake Clayton also scored for the Wolves, who bounced back after falling in two previous games against Barrie at home.
The two teams have already met five times this season, including four times in the Big Nickel.
“Everyone in this league is competitive, whether it be coaches or players alike,” said Smoskowitz, whose club holds a 3-2 edge in the season series. “You see a team a couple of times in their building, and we hand them losses, you knew they were going to come out hard tonight.
“Give them credit, they played a good game. They were structured, and they played hard.”
The end of their point streak (10-1-1), coupled with North Bay’s 4-1 win in Kingston on Friday, means the Colts’ lead atop the Central Division over the Battalion is down to two points.
Barrie missed out on a chance to add more points ahead of what’s expected to be a loss of possibly up to four key veterans this month.
Both Aitcheson and Beaudoin are expected to join the national junior team in preparation for the World Junior Hockey Championships, while Emil Hemming (Finland) and possibly Gabriel Eliasson (Sweden) will follow shortly.
“These are all big points,” said Smoskowitz. “We kept saying all along this streak that you want to bank these points. There are a bunch of teams on our side playing good hockey, winning some games. These are two points tonight on the line that we felt good about and prepared for all week, but it wasn’t meant to be.”
The Colts will return home and get set to face the Kingston Frontenacs on Saturday night for the first time since they eliminated them in seven games in the second round of the OHL playoffs.
“We’ll regroup tonight,” said Smoskowitz. “Have a good bus ride back to Barrie and get ready for Kingston tomorrow.”
ICE CHIPS
Aitcheson added an assist to his two goals and now has 30 points (18-12) to sit second in scoring among OHL blueliners, four points behind Windsor’s Carson Woodall.
The Colts will be without overage forward Calvin Crombie (unspecified injury) for at least a couple of weeks. “He’s just going to get some treatment here,” said Smoskowitz. “If we can get him back before the New Year, it would be ideal. So, we’re just going to take it day-by-day with him.”
Smoskowitz credited Bronas for his play in the net for Sudbury but felt his team didn’t do enough. “You can’t stop what you can’t see, and I don’t think we bothered him enough tonight,” he said.
Hemming had two assists and now has 20 points (4-16) in 12 games.
ADD. OHL
Brampton 2 Brantford 1
Kitchener 6 Niagara 3
Saginaw 4 London 2
Ottawa 2 Oshawa 1
North Bay 4 Kingston 1
Sault Ste. Marie 6 Sarnia 1
Guelph 5 Windsor 4
