Carter George was looking to steal the show for the Owen Sound Attack Thursday night at Sadlon Arena, but Ben Hrebik put on quite the performance in the net himself to help the Barrie Colts lockdown a special franchise win.
Making only his third career OHL start, Hrebik turned aside three breakaways, including one in overtime, and then stopped both shootout attempts to help Barrie top Owen Sound 4-3 and give the organization its 1000th win in its 30th anniversary season.
“It feels great,” said Hrebik after recording the historic win and posing with his teammates for a team photo on the ice with the number 1,000 in silver balloons.
George, considered one of the OHL’s top goaltenders, was his usual stellar self, turning aside 46 of 49 shots to keep the Attack in the game, but Hrebik came up big when he had to.
He stoned Owen Sound’s Harry Nansi on a breakaway in overtime and then stood tall on Declan Waddick and Bruce McDonald’s shootout attempts to give Barrie (5-3) its fourth win in its last five games.
“I thought he did a great job for us,” Colts general manager and head coach Marty Williamson said of his young goalie. “A couple of breakdowns and you need your goalie to bail you out, and he sure did. Then our guys came through in the shootout.”
The Milton native, who was just as good in his only other start this season, a 2-1 win over Sudbury, stopped 25 of 28 shots. He gave credit to his teammates in front of him.
“I just got to stay calm,” said the 18-year-old backup. “I trust my team, so I just got to do my job.”
Hrebik is now 2-0 with a shining 1.92 goals against average and a .938 save percentage.
“He looks like he can play in this league,” said Williamson. “He’s giving us confidence every game and it’s growing with him. We have a nice duo with (Sam) Hillebrandt and Hrebik, and they get along really well. It’s nice to see.
“He’s a young goalie, and he’s just getting better and better.”
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While Hrebik was doing his part in the shootout, Barrie’s elite forwards went to work with two shootout goals that sealed the win.
Emil Hemming scored on a pretty deke, faking to his forehand before bringing it back across and lifting it past George who bit on the first move to his left.
Then Cole Beaudoin walked in, cut to the middle, and snapped one over George’s glove. Hrebik took care of the rest.
“Those are high-end goals,” said Williamson. “No matter who is in the net there, those things are going in. And Hrebik did his job. Two big saves.”
Grayson Tiller opened the scoring less than three minutes into the game, before a power-play marker by Landen Hookey midway through the first and a goal by Sam McCue at 14:44 of the second put Owen Sound (3-4-1-1) on top.
Carter Lowe scored late in the second and then Riley Patterson, with his first of the season, buried a feed from behind the net by Beaudoin just 12 seconds into the third period to give Barrie a 3-2 lead.
Tersigni would get his stick on a James Petrovski dribbler from the point at 6:53 to tie things up.
“Our second and third period was pretty dominant,” said Williamson, whose club outshot the Attack 33-14 over those 40 minutes of play. “I thought we played really well. We out-chanced them 22 to 8.
“The first period, I didn’t like our feet movement. But I thought in the second and third, it was outstanding.”
It was a solid effort on the road for a rebuilding Attack club, but Williamson admits not coming away with two points after a fairly dominant effort on home ice would have been disappointing.
“It’s an important two points,” he said. “When you play hard and do a lot of good things like we did in the second and third and not to get the result… I thought (we) deserved the overtime or shootout victory and we got it.”
Barrie wraps up play this weekend with a Sunday afternoon visit to the Nation’s Capital to take on the Ottawa 67’s.
“A little weird and quirky to head to Ottawa for a one-off,” said Williamson of the schedule. “We don’t do that too often. It will be good to get there Saturday, have a good little practice, and then play them on Sunday.”
Game time at TD Place is 2 p.m.
ICE CHIPS: Barrie’s all-time record is 1000-719-75-74-33. . . New commissioner Bryan Crawford was at the game Thursday as part of his cross-league tour of each OHL city. . . Colts captain Beau Jelsma is set to make his return next weekend. Nolan Newton (concussion) still hasn’t been cleared to return after missing the last four games. Michael Derbidge was injured in tonight’s contest and is expected to miss at least the remainder of the weekend. “We’ve got a couple of injuries we’ve got to take care of, but we fully anticipate Jelsma playing next Thursday,” said Williamson. . . Kashawn Aitcheson sat out the first of a two-game suspension. . . Colts’ defenceman Gabriel Eliasson changed his number from 74 to 78. . . Barrie native Jake Crawford and Alliston native Eliot Arnett were held off the scoresheet for Owen Sound.
