It may have been an ugly win, but for a struggling Barrie Colts team these days a win is a win and they'll gladly take it.
Barrie, which came into contest against the Hamilton Bulldogs with just one win in its last five games, scored four unanswered goals to rally for a much-needed 7-5 victory, Thursday night, at Sadlon Arena.
"I'm super proud of the boys," said Colts forward Beau Jelsma, who scored twice, including the winner. "It was incredible how we fought back. We had some tough talks in the room during the intermissions, but just the way we fought back was awesome."
Jacob Frasca, Hunter Haight, Callum Chisholm, Connor Punnett and Beau Akey, into an empty net, also scored for the Colts (7-4-1-1), who trailed 5-3 late in the second period before coming to life.
Logan Morrison, who also had two assists, Patrick Thomas, Jorian Donovan, Brenden Anderson and Ryan Humphrey scored for the Bulldogs (4-8-1-0), who twice held two-goal leads and couldn't hang on.
A wild, but entertaining first period saw Barrie fall behind 3-1 midway through frame, only to draw even on late goals by Frasca and Haight, on the power play, just 19 seconds apart.
But Anderson scored his first OHL goal less than a minute later to put Hamilton back on top and cap off a sloppy opening period that looked like it would end the night for Colts goaltender Anson Thornton.
"We gave up four goals in the first period and one after that, but I thought Thornton did a great job," said Colts head coach Marty Williamson. "Probably the best call of the night was (goaltending coach) Dave Belitski telling me to leave him in there, he was going to rebound for me.
"I was ready to take him out after the first, so a lot of credit there. But... it's just not a good hockey game (from our team)."
The Colts got some big news with the return of veteran defenceman Artur Cholach to the lineup, but Williamson just might want to burn the video of this one.
While they got the win, it was another clunker on home ice for a Colts team that won for just the third time in seven games at Sadlon Arena.
"There's just too many spotty performances. When you got five, six, seven guys that have bad hockey games, I don't care where you are you're not going to play well," said Williamson. "We got a couple of defencemen that didn't play well. It was good to get Cholach back in there, he helped us a lot, but it's a lot to ask for a guy who has been out for four weeks to shoulder (three games in three nights) and all the ice time he's carrying.
"We got to find our way. We need a more consistent effort across the board."
After Humphrey restored the two-goal lead for the defending OHL champion Bulldogs, Jelsma got the comeback started late in the second with his fourth of the season.
Punnett's blast from the point through traffic, with Barrie on the power play, beat Matteo Drobac to tie it at 5-5 midway through the third.
Jelsma would nearly blew though roof off at 16:41 with his second of the game and the game-winner. Donovan appeared to blow a tire at centre ice and the Colts forward pounced on the turnover and raced down the ice before pulling it to his forehand and firing it over the right pad of Drobac.
Akey would seal the comeback into an empty net with just 19 seconds remaining.
"I've been working on that exact play all week long, working on the shootout," said Jelsma. "As soon as I got in that situation, I knew exactly what I was going to do."
It was quite the finish for Jelsma who fortunately survived an ugly knee-on-knee hit by Bulldogs' Adrian Rebelo early in the second.
Rebelo was handed a kneeing major and his night was over with the game misconduct.
"It really sucked," Jelsma said of the collision. "I came back to the room and I didn't know if I was going to be able to come back. I was stretching it out and (fortunately) it was just a bit of a stinger.
It felt a lot better, and I was like, 'I got to get back out to the game.'"
Humphrey was also tossed from the contest when he was handed a major and game misconduct for a blindside hit on Tai York along the glass just 43 seconds into the third period.
Despite two lengthy power plays, the Colts didn't capitalize let alone even get a good scoring opportunity.
"Then we score a power-play goal on a simple play, so it goes to show you," Williamson said of Punnett's rocket from the point. "Those two five-on-fours were embarrassing how we handled the puck. The ice did look bad, nothing seemed to sit comfortable out there. The puck was bouncing all over the place.
"There's excuses, but there's no excuses for lack of effort from guys. The bottom line is just get them out of the lineup. We'll get healthy, we'll call guys up. It's leadership, it's older guys. You just can't have that kind of effort."
Thursday night's win kicked off a three-in-three weekend set. Barrie hits the road Friday night to take on the London Knights and Williamson is hoping to see his club continue the aggressive forecheck he saw late in the win over Hamilton and not the team that had the "below average" battle level early on.
"That's our game," he said. "We're a speed team, we're a forechecking team. If we don't play that, we're going to have long nights. We better get better for London because that's a tough building to go into."
"Hopefully, we got the bad one out of the way, and we got two points from it," Williamson added.
Game time at Budweiser Gardens is 7 p.m.
ICE CHIPS: The Colts wrap up their first 3-in-3 weekend when they host the North Bay Battalion on Saturday night. . . Williamson is on the verge of two big OHL coaching milestones. He now has 498 wins and is just two shy of the 500 mark, while he needs just three more games behind the bench to reach 900. . . Hamilton outshot Barrie, 42-30. . . The Colts held a special pre-game tribute to military members from Base Borden ahead Remembrance Day on Friday.
banner image: Terry Wilson/OHL Images
