The Barrie Colts are still looking ahead at the Brantford Bulldogs when it comes to the race for top spot in the Eastern Conference standings.
Adam Jiricek and Cooper Dennis scored twice each, and Adam Benak had a goal and two assists as the first-place Bulldogs rallied late in the second period and then held strong in the third for a 5-3 win over the Colts in front of a near sellout crowd of 4,197 at Sadlon Arena on Thursday.
Barrie (42-13-2-4), which came into the night trailing Brantford (42-9-7-2) by one point in the race for home ice advantage throughout the conference playoffs, found itself down 4-3 heading into the third after Jiricek and Benak scored 71 seconds apart with less than two minutes in the second to help the visitors retake the lead.
Unlike the last time these two OHL heavyweights met here less than two weeks ago, when the Colts scored five times in the final frame to roar to a 7-4 victory, there’d be no huge finish for the home team this time around.
In a near-perfect third, the Bulldogs held the Colts to few offensive looks and then iced the big win with a Dennis empty-netter with 57 seconds remaining.
Brantford did a much better job of containing Barrie in the third.
“I thought they did,” said Colts’ head coach Dylan Smoskowitz, whose club was outshot 19-6 in the third and 46-32 overall. “I didn’t think we had as much energy as we needed to come back and take the lead back again. The energy push for us was in that second period. I was really proud of the guys, because no one liked our first period.”
The Bulldogs dominated the opening period and were rewarded when Jiricek — whose 16th goal set a new franchise record for most goals in a single season by a defenceman — and Dennis beat Ben Hrebik 54 seconds apart late in the first to put the Colts in a 2-0 hole.
Barrie came to life early in the second when Mason Zebeski and Parker von Richter fired power-play goals 2:30 apart to even things up.
Emil Hemming then gave the Colts their first lead of the game at 11:26 when he raced down the right side and ripped one over the right pad of Ryerson Leenders just seconds after a good scoring chance at the other end.
The tide, though, turned late in the second.
“We’re not consistently putting 60 minutes together,” said Colts’ captain Kashawn Aitcheson. “There are lulls in our game. We’ll play really well for 10 minutes, dominate a team. Then, kind of step back. It’s obviously a thing we have to work on. I’m not too worried about it. This is when you learn for the playoffs.
“We just have to take this as a learning lesson and move this forward into the last eight games.”
The Colts were sloppy in their own end at times and paid the price.
“Just some loose defending,” said Smoskowitz. “I thought we had more energy on offence than we had on defence tonight, and when you play a team like that, you need to be energized defensively.
“Some loose defending led to too many chances against, too many goals against. That was our downfall tonight.”
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Barrie is running out of time to track down the Bulldogs with just seven games remaining on the regular season schedule. Brantford, up three points now, still has a game in hand.
While disappointed they came up short, the Colts maintain their focus is the same as it is every game. Just play their game.
“We don’t really look at the standings or wins and losses,” said Aitcheson. “Our whole philosophy here is to work harder. Win or lose, no one cares. Learn from it. There are always things to learn, whether you have the best game of your life or the worst.
“It’s just another game. We didn’t get the result we wanted, but we have a lot of things to learn from this. Just keep moving forward. Every game here is just building towards the playoffs.”
The game between the two contenders lived up to its hype. Smoskowitz could feel the buzz in the city all week with people approaching him about the big game.
“A lot of people wanted to come see this game,” said the Barrie rookie bench boss. “It was two good teams, and, yeah, they were probably the better team tonight. I’ll give them that, but it wasn’t like they dominated us. It was a good hockey game out there, good players on the ice.
“For the fans, it was pretty fun to watch, but next time we want to come out on top.”
UP NEXT
The Colts return to action on Saturday night when they play host to North Bay.
Their Central Division rivals have been red hot, with eight wins in their last 10 games.
“Have a good showing,” said Smoskowitz of the goal. “There’s so much we want to build on going into the playoffs. We want to be bulletproof when we start that first playoff game. As much as you want to continue to win these games, whether we win or lose Saturday against North Bay, it’s not where our focus is at.
“We just want to make sure that we’re confident in what we’re doing. We want to try some new things. We want to lock down some things, our habits, our details, so that when Game 1 rolls around on March 26, everyone knows exactly what the assignment is, and everyone can feel confident in their ability.”
Meanwhile, Brantford hosts Saginaw on Friday.
ICE CHIPS
Zebeski added two assists to his 18th goal for a three-point night.
The Colts finished 2-for-3 with the man advantage and did a good job of keeping the OHL’s top power-play unit off the ice, holding the Bulldogs to 0-for-1.
Joe Salandra (illness) missed a fourth-straight game.
Brantford was without Philadelphia Flyers’ top prospect Jett Luchanko (undisclosed injury), who is week-to-week.
ADD. OHL
Saginaw 5 Niagara 4
Oshawa 4 North Bay 3
Peterborough 1 Ottawa 0 (OT)
