Just minutes after scoring the winning overtime goal, the electric smile on the face of Barrie Colts defenceman Kashawn Aitcheson face said it all.
With he and his teammates riding a four-game losing streak coming in, the thrilling come-from-behind 4-3 win over the Mississauga Steelheads in front of 3,973 fans at the Sadlon Arena was exactly what the struggling team needed.
“Yeah, it was unbelievable,” said Aitcheson of the spirited rally from two goals down halfway through the final period.
After a rough past couple of weeks on the road where Barrie (12-15) played arguably its most disappointing hockey of the season, head coach Marty Williamson was happy to see his young club bounce back at home.
With two wins in Mississauga, the Colts have won all three games this season against their division rivals.
“That’s the best thing to see, is the smiles on their faces,” said Williamson, who was not too happy after losses in Sarnia and Windsor earlier this week. “This is a fun game, and they love playing it, but it gets tough when you start losing a bunch in a row.
“For them to get the win and be able to jump around like kids in there (dressing room) and be pretty excited about, that’s great to see.”
So too was Barrie’s response to adversity in the third after Zander Veccia banged one home from behind the net to increase the Mississauga (16-9-2-0) lead to 3-1.
Instead of letting it get them down, the Colts immediately pushed back and were rewarded a little more than two minutes later when Beau Jelsma wired a drive from the edge of the left faceoff circle past Steelheads goalie Jack Ivankovic to get it back to within a goal.
Then with 2 minutes remaining, Aitcheson and Patterson would help set up Riley Patterson, who banged home a rebound in front, to send it into overtime.
Aitcheson would complete the comeback when he hammered home a perfect setup by Roenick Jodoin on a two-on-one just 43 seconds into the extra period.
The play came just seconds after Aitcheson lost a race for a puck and Porter Malone looked to send a pass to a streaking Angus MacDonnell, who was all alone behind the Barrie defence, only to have Jelsma knock it out of the air and get the puck going the other way.
“I tried to poke it away and it kind of got slapped by me and I kind of got scared there,” said Aitcheson, who along with Cole Beaudoin and Jelsma each had a goal and assist. “Beau obviously had my back and made an unbelievable play. Jodoin got the puck and just fed me.”
All year long, Williamson has boasted about his team’s willingness to fight back and not quit. Last night it came against a good Steelheads club that was tied atop the Central Division standings.
“That’s the thing I was most proud of,” said the coach. “When it went 3-1, kind of an unfortunate goal, we were playing a pretty good period and we could have really lagged, wasted about five or seven minutes feeling sorry for ourselves and we didn’t. We came out, we kept pushing and kept getting chances.
“Jelsma found a way to get the puck in and Patterson gets that last one for us by going to the net in a dirty area, so it was a nice sign.”
Aitcheson credited leaders like Jelsma and captain Connor Punnett for rallying the troops.
“We went to our leaders for that,” he said of the inspiration needed. “They made us not back down and we persevered. They say the worst lead in hockey is two goals and we took advantage of that.”
Aitcheson certainly had himself a night. The second-year blueliner’s OT winner completed a “Gordie Howe hat trick,” capping off a night where he scored a rousing defeat of Marc Boudreau in an early second-period fight, drew an assist and potted his seventh goal of the season and first-game winner.
“I thought he played a heck of a game,” Williamson said of Aitcheson. “He set up the tying goal and scores the winning goal. It was a heck of a fight against a 20-year-old. That kid’s going to be pretty special player down the road.”
After two years of Colts fans not having the opportunity to litter the ice on Teddy Bear Toss night, Beaudoin made sure fans wouldn’t have to wait long on this night to let them fly.
After Malone’s first of two power-play goals of the night at 8:11 of the first, Beaudoin took a pass from Tai York in the slot, spun and wired a shot over the right shoulder of Ivankovic more than four minutes later to tie it and let it rain bears.
It was Beaudoin’s fifth goal in his last six games and the two points gave him nine points during the same stretch.
The Colts, led by Sam Hillebrandt who made 40 saves, were solid all night defensively.
“We really talked to the defence that we had to stop pinching and we needed to have the two defencemen there as a wall and hopefully our forwards would do a good job that we weren’t going to give up odd-man rushes, and I thought we did do a pretty good job of it,” said Williamson.
“At the start of the second, we had one pinch there and I grabbed the six of them and I said, ‘That’s it, no more pinching. It’s killing us.’ They’re doing a good job, but we still got to find ways. For us tonight, we only had 19 guys dressed for the game, but everybody has to be on their game for us to win hockey games and tonight was a pretty good 19-man effort.”
Williamson also praised the character and leadership of Jelsma who was instrumental in the comeback. The Colts leading scorer with 11 goals and 30 points doesn’t like to lose.
“It’s tough on kids like Beau, because they’re on that team last year which was a team in the top group and in that second half, we didn’t lose many games,” he said. “For him now to be a mentor to this group of younger guys, it wears on guys like that because he wants to win every single night.
“For him to get us going too with that second goal and for him to play as hard as he did, we’re pretty impressed with him.”
The Colts wrap up their pre-Christmas schedule next weekend when they travel to Brantford for the first time on Friday night and then return home Saturday night to host the OHL-leading Kitchener Rangers.
Game time versus the Rangers is 7:30 p.m.
ICE CHIPS: Hillebrandt received a special surprise after the game when staff from the U.S. national junior team presented the goalie with his American goalie pads and gear for the upcoming world junior hockey championships in Sweden. . . All the bears tossed on the ice will be donated to the Simcoe Muskoka Family Connexions and then given to deserving children for the holidays. . . The Barrie Colts held their annual Easter Seals pancake breakfast and skate Saturday morning and presented the charity with a cheque for $15,000 before the game. . . Mississauga outshot Barrie, 43-30. . . After going 0-for-3, the Colts are just 1-for-33 on the power play over their last eight games. The Steelheads were 2-for-3.
Banner image via Sam Hossack - Barrie Colts
