Bad starts can be hard to overcome, but even tougher when you're facing a good team on a winning streak and you're playing your third game in three nights.
The Barrie Colts found that out Saturday night when the North Bay Battalion scored just 43 seconds in and then added two more before the game was 14 minutes old en route to a 7-2 trouncing of the home team at Sadlon Arena.
A rare off night brought goalie Anson Thornton's evening to an early end after giving up three goals on just five shots. The Colts pushed back and late in the second period looked like they might have a chance to take advantage of the momentum when the Battalion were nailed for too many men.
Instead, on the ensuing power play, Liam Arnsby buried a shorthanded breakaway and Justin Ertel followed that with another goal two minutes later to make it 5-0 and it was lights out.
Ethan Cardwell scored twice in the first six minutes of the third, but it was as close as Barrie would come.
"That was really the backbreaker," Colts head coach Marty Williamson said of Arnsby's shorthanded marker. "Thornton has played well for us, but he had a rough start. We get behind there and I really didn't think we played that bad in the first period. For scoring chances, we didn't give up a ton. The shots were 9-9 and we came out in the second and we played pretty good for about 17 minutes until the power play and then we give up two at the end there.
"(We) showed some fight in the third, just a scrappy kind of third period, but we needed to get off to a better start. We needed Thornton to help us get off to that good start, especially being a tired team."
Dalyn Wakely, with a pair, Ty Nelson, Matvey Petrov and Anthony Romani also scored for North Bay (12-4-0-0), which ran its win streak to seven games and moved atop the Central Division standings, two points ahead of Mississauga.
Evan Vierling added a pair of assists and now has six points (1-5-6) in his last three games for the Colts (7-5-2-1), who dug themselves a hole early in this one.
"It's hard to claw back," said Williamson. "We needed, like we did in the second, two or three good looks to get goals. Then you think, power play. We chip in there, get this period to 3-1 and I was going to be pretty happy.
"We had a tired player on the ice and you just shouldn't have that when you get a power play."
It was a tough finish to a period which Colts veteran Jacob Frasca felt he and his teammates deserved better.
"It slipped away for three minutes and it just kind of shut our team down at the end of the second there, but that's how hockey works," Frasca said. "You get the momentum and you can lose it just like that in the second.
"We just have to learn to fight adversity and stick to our team characteristics and what we know to do, and we'll be OK."
While the Colts big line of Vierling, Cardwell and Frasca combined for two goals and five points and were good all night, it's been the only line consistently producing offence for Barrie of late.
The Colts need to get more contributions from others.
"This is too good a league for that," he said of having only one consistent line scoring. "We got too many games where we got bad players. Guys that aren't producing and aren't doing anything. Our team isn't deep enough to have those kind of games and to play in this league.
"The league's just too good. It doesn't matter who you play, whether it's Hamilton or whether it's Ottawa. The league is too good to have bad performances and unfortunately, our goalie had a rough one to start and that puts you behind the eight ball."
Williamson said there's plenty enough blame to go around for the club's slow start.
"We haven't had consistency where we've had 20 guys and can come in say all 20 guys gave us that kind of effort that we need to win consistently," he said.
If the Colts want to keep pace with North Bay and Mississauga in the Central, they can't afford several passengers each night.
"It's killed us," he said. "It's made us a very inconsistent team. We're a .500 team and that's what a .500 team does. They're good sometimes, they're bad sometimes. It's easy to be average and we're average right now."
The Colts, who have had a couple of big comebacks this season, were hoping for the same when Cardwell scored twice early in the third, but a hooking call on Chris Grisolia led to Wakely's first of the night.
"They get a power play goal and it just takes the momentum away," said Williamson.
Wakely would add a second five minutes later to complete the scoring.
While it still may be somewhat early in the year, the Colts will have do better than just two wins in their last eight games if they want to keep pace in what Frasca says is the best division he's seen in his four years in the league.
" It will eventually come, we just got to stick with it," he said. "We got to trust our coaches, trust our teammates. We're a family and we'll fight together."
ICE CHIPS: The Colts return to action on Wednesday morning when they face the Bulldogs in a school day game in Hamilton at 10:30 a.m. . . Great news for the Colts as head athletic therapist Keith Kling was back at the rink after suffering a seizure and being taken to the hospital before Friday's game in London. . . The Colts will have to make the tough decision this week on which three of the four overagers they'll keep on the roster ahead of the overage cutoff. Barrie will have to move or release one of Ian Lemieux, Declan McDonnell, Cardwell or Vierling. Lemieux has been out for three weeks with a bad back. . . Ben West replaced Thornton with 6:40 remaining in the first and stopped 22 of the 26 shots he faced the rest of the way. Dom DiVincentiis made 26 saves in goal for North Bay to pick up his 10th win of the season. . . The Colts were outshot 31-28.
Banner image via Terry Wilson/OHL Images
