Goaltending has been a strength of the Barrie Colts for most of this season, but that wasn’t the case Monday afternoon in Kingston.
A rare off-day by both starter Sam Hillebrandt and backup Ben West proved costly as the Colts dropped a 7-4 decision to the Frontenacs at the Leons Centre.
Hillebrandt struggled early and was pulled at 10:03 of the first period after giving up three goals on eight shots, and West, his replacement, didn’t fare much better, giving up four goals on 26 shots the rest of the way.
“It was a rough day,” said Colts head coach Marty Williamson, whose club has now dropped three straight. “We kind of talked about this before the game. I thought our defence played good Saturday night (7-6 loss to Saginaw) and I thought our forwards didn’t have a good game. We’re a team that needs our goaltending to be good, our defence to be good, our forwards to be good to win hockey games.
“For some reason today, our goaltending struggled and you can’t win a game when your goalies are giving up five or six goals.”
Forward Beau Jelsma said it didn’t help matters that the guys in front Hillebrandt and West didn’t provide them much support.
“It’s nothing that Hilly or Westie did, it’s all the guys in front of him,” said the Colts captain, who had a goal and two assists for a three-point effort. “Really from the defence to the forwards, we weren’t picking up guys and boxing guys out, letting guys walk through and not picking up our man, and it cost us today.
“We had some good moments and some not-so-great moments, and a team like this is going to capitalize on them.”
The loss was the third straight for Barrie (21-28-3-0), which now trails Kingston (26-26-2-0), by nine points for seventh place in the Eastern Conference standings.
“I don’t think we had our normal jump in our game today at all,” said Jelsma. “We were a little sluggish here and there and our forecheck wasn’t as great, but that happens.
“We just got to get back to the drawing board tomorrow and get back at it on Wednesday (in Owen Sound).”
Christopher Thibodeau, Jacob Battaglia and Alliston native Jacob Holmes gave the Frontenacs the jump they needed in this one, but twice the Colts fought back to make this a one-goal contest.
Wigle scored late in the first and then early in the second to cut the lead to one. After Cal Uens made it 4-2 past the midway point of the second, Jelsma spun around at the boards and fired one at the net from a bad angle that somehow found its way past Kingston goaltender Mason Vaccari to get Barrie back within one heading into the third.
“Jelsma threw a puck on net and got us back to a one goal game and that was a good thing,” said Williamson. “Those are the kind of things you need to do on the road when you got a lively building. It wasn’t perfect, but I thought we kind of hung around there until the third where it just didn’t go our way.”
A bad third sunk the Colts. Jakub Chromiak’s point shot beat West a little more than two minutes in, and then he scored again just 52 seconds later.
Battaglia, with his second of the game, made it 7-4 on the power play at 13:15 to all but ice this one.
“Chromiak’s shot shouldn’t go in,” said Williamson. “The other one, we make a defensive error with our player and we don’t get the save. It’s a one goal game and it turns into a three-goal game quick and that’s how she wrote it. . . we needed to come out and we needed to get good goaltending in the third and we didn’t play a good period.”
Cole Beaudoin would notch his team-leading 25th of the season with just 1:54 remaining to run his scoring streak to 15 games (9-14-23), but it was too little too late.
“I think we made way too many costly mistakes,” said Jelsma. “We got ourselves in a good spot going into the third period, but we made some immature mistakes there at the start of the third and dug our hole a little deeper.”
Barrie also missed an opportunity to gain ground on the Peterborough Petes and Niagara IceDogs in the race for the eighth and final playoff berth in the conference.
The Colts lead the Petes, who fell 6-2 to Kitchener, by five points with two games in hand and are up by six points on the IceDogs, who were blanked 6-0 by Oshawa, with three games in hand.
“This season is going to come down to four games against Peterborough and Niagara whether we make playoffs or not and the rest of the time we just got to keep getting better and stay healthy,” said Williamson.
Game time Wednesday vs. the Attack at the Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre is 7 p.m.
“Obviously we’re thinking about that right now,” said Jelsma of the race to lock down a playoff spot with 16 games remaining. “They’re going to keep coming and coming and we got to keep responding and get some wins here. It’s going to be a tough one up in Owen Sound, but I believe we can do it and then work on the next one against Mississauga on Saturday.
“We just got to keep driving forward and hopefully we can pick up a few points.”
ICE CHIPS: Jelsma was originally credited with a late goal in the first, but it was changed later once replays showed Wigle had got a piece of it before it went in. . . Riley Patterson’s 10-game scoring streak (9-9-18) came to an end. . . Chris Grisolia (ankle) was slated to return to the lineup on Monday but was scratched. “Gris was slated to play today and then he got sick on the weekend, so we decided to move him to Wednesday,” said Williamson on the forward who has been out since Dec. 30th. . . Defenceman Grayson Tiller (foot) is expected to be out until early March. “Whether he’s ready for those Niagara, Peterborough games or just after that is going to be the time frame for him and hopefully everything goes well,” said Williamson. . . Kingston outshot Barrie 34-29, including 16-8 in the third. Over the last two games, the Colts have been outshot 34-11 in the final frame.
Banner image: Jelsma faceoff in Kingston - Barrie Colts
