Minutes after watching the London Knights score three times in the third period to erase a two-goal Barrie Colts lead and rally for a 5-4 win on Friday night, Marty Williamson wasn’t holding back.
Spurred on by a two-man advantage, with one penalty coming on a bizarre delay of game penalty to goaltender Sam Hillebrandt, the Knights scored twice on the power play to turn the contest around and leave the Colts’ general manager and coach fuming.
“If you’re playing London, you’re playing the refs,” said Williamson. “I think it’s a horrible call on our goaltender, and then it’s a dumb penalty we take. How he thinks our goalie intentionally knocked that over when he’s going side-to-side to try and make a big save is just a joke.
But that’s what you live with sometimes, and we’ll live with it. We played 50 good minutes; we got a good hockey team, and we’ll be fine.”
The Colts were up 4-2 and in control heading into the final frame at the newly named Canada Life Place in London on the strength of two-goal efforts by Brad Gardiner and Dalyn Wakely, making his Colts’ debut, when the game turned on the Knights’ power play midway through the period.
Less than two minutes after Sam Dickinson scored his second and third power-play goals of the game to tie it, Evan Gorp picked up a loose puck inside the blue line and cut to the slot before sliding one between the pads of Hillebrandt for the winner.
While the Colts felt they deserved better on this night, it goes down as a loss.
“Yeah, deserving of points, but it doesn’t mean a lot when you can’t close games out and be smart,” said Williamson. “If we have to kill a penalty then it’s one goal, not three goals and just compounding the problem for ourselves.”
Jesse Nurmi scored his first OHL goal for the Knights (3-3) who have won two straight.
The loss snapped a two-game win streak for the Colts (3-3) who return home Saturday night to face another tough test against the Brampton Steelheads, the CHL’s top-ranked team.
It was quite the debut in a Barrie uniform for Wakely, acquired Thursday morning in a deal with the North Bay Battalion.
Both of the Edmonton Oilers prospect’s goals came with Barrie shorthanded and he added an assist for three points.
The first goal came with just seven seconds left in the second period when he picked up a rebound off his shot and wired a shot top corner from a bad angle over the glove of London goalie Alexei Medvedev.
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Wakely then pulled off a highlight reel goal a little more than three minutes into the third to make it 4-2 when he was sent in alone by Zach Wigle.
The centre slipped the puck back through his legs, reached back, and roofed it over Medvedev.
“He was outstanding for a kid that hasn’t played much hockey and has been off for a while,” Williamson said of Wakely, who had yet to play after being sent back down on September 24 by the Oiler’s AHL affiliate in Bakersfield, Calif. “He’s got a great demeanour to him.
“He did a real good job for us.”
The power play continues to improve for Barrie, finishing 1-for-4 and showing much better puck movement. The penalty kill gave up three goals on six chances and was put in a tough spot in the third.
“I thought our power play moved it around well and did good things,” said Williamson. “It’s tough when you get five-on-threes (shorthanded situations) against teams like this. It’s just the way special teams went tonight.”
Barrie will now look to avenge a 4-1 loss to Brampton last Thursday at home.
“These are good for us because it exposes some things,” Williamson said of Friday’s tough loss. “It tells us what we got to work on. Tough lessons, but they’re always good lessons. We got to keep moving forward.”
Game time at Sadlon Arena is 7:30 p.m.
ICE CHIPS: Gardiner’s two goals were also his first in a Colts’ uniform. Rookie Parker Vaughan, a native of St. Thomas, played his first OHL game in his hometown rink. . . Wigle added an assist and now has points in three straight games. . . Beau Jelsma (shoulder), Tai York, Justin Handsor, and Nolan Newton (injured) did not dress for Barrie. . . Former Colt Mark Scheifele scored twice to give the Winnipeg Jets a 2-1 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on Friday night and become just the second player in Jets franchise history to score 300 goals. The other? Dale Hawerchuk.
