A night after a dramatic late comeback win, the Barrie Colts couldn’t keep the momentum going on the road Friday night in the completion of a home-and-home set with the Sudbury Wolves.
An “inspired” Wolves team seemed a step ahead of the Colts all night and came away with a 5-3 win in front of 4,717 fans at the Sudbury Community Arena.
Tied 3-3 after forty minutes, Hudson Chitaroni fired home the game-winner midway through third period as the Wolves rebounded from a 4-3 overtime loss Thursday in Barrie.
“It was kind of a weird game,” said Colts general manager and head coach Marty Williamson. “We did some things well and other times it was not good enough to win on the road. They came out and played a pretty inspired game, it was a pretty big crowd in here and we didn’t get any breaks with the refereeing.
“We didn’t make our own breaks either.”
Chitaroni collected a loose puck behind the Barrie net and skated back around to the blue line before cutting to the middle of the ice and then turning to face the net and firing a seeing-eye shot from the point that found its way through a battling Tayjon Street and Gabriel Eliasson in front and past Barrie netminder Ben Hrebik.
Alex Pharand sealed the win with an empty-net goal with just 17 seconds remaining.
“It was a seeing-eye shot,” said Williamson of Chitaroni’s winner. “I kind of felt it was going to be that way. They blocked a lot of shots, and I felt we could have got one of those too. Give them credit for that.
“On the goal, we had two chances for a breakout, and we messed up both and something bad happened, a seeing-eye goal. You make your own breaks, or you give them the odd break and give them second or third chances.”
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The loss snapped a three-game winning streak for the Colts (16-8), who rallied from a 3-0 first-period deficit to win the night before.
“Back-to-back games are tough,” said Williamson. “It looks like we’re hitting these guys with the same kind of routine, but to beat a team twice… I do feel they were pretty inspired.
“I didn’t think we were bad, but just not good enough to win on the road. You have to be awfully good on the road and stay out of the box and things like that. We took too many chunks of the game away with penalties.”
Barrie also fell behind early in this one, with Nathan Villeneuve and Kieron Walton, with his first of two on the night, putting Sudbury (13-8-4) up 2-0 after twenty minutes.
The Colts power-play would go to work early in the second period to even things up. Kashawn Aitcheson blasted home his seventh of the season from the left faceoff circle at 2:50 and then just 37 seconds later Carter Lowe found Dalyn Wakely walking in and the Edmonton Oilers hammered home the one-timer past Nate Krawchuk to tie it.
The Colts though couldn’t build on the momentum as Walton put the Wolves back on top a little more than five minutes later.
Cole Beaudoin tied it again with 36 seconds left in the second when he picked the pocket of Pharand, spun, and fired one past Krawchuk, but that was it for Barrie.
“It was kind of a flat game. I thought they played a more inspired game,” said Williamson. “They had their third man high, and they weren’t going to give us anything off the rush. We just needed to get pucks down low and grind, and we just weren’t quite good enough at that.”
The Colts wrap up a tough three-in-three weekend back on home ice Saturday night when they host the Brantford Bulldogs.
The Bulldogs are coming off a 7-3 road pasting of the Oshawa Generals last night. Brantford will be looking to atone for a 3-2 overtime loss at home to Barrie a little more than two weeks ago.
“This is where the scheduling gets a little bit tough,” said Williamson. “We’re in front of our fans and there will be a big crowd, and we need to play an inspired game. We beat them in overtime the last time we played them, but they got (Chicago Blackhawks prospect) Marek Vanacker back and most of the team is healthy now, so it should be a heck of a game.”
Game time Saturday night at Sadlon Arena is 7:30 p.m.
ICE CHIPS:
The annual Teddy Bear Toss is Saturday night. The bears will be given away to a local charity. . . Aitcheson and Chase Coughlan got into a spirited fight midway through the second period with things kicking off with a leaping overhand right from the Colt. . . Walton’s four-point night (2G, 2A) gave him six goals and nine points in six games against Barrie this season. . . Beau Jelsma has now gone seven games without scoring. Prior to that, the Colts captain had six goals in eight games. . . Bode Stewart added another assist and now has 15 in 21 games, but the veteran winger is still looking for his first goal. . . Aitcheson’s seven goals in 21 games are just one off his career high in 64 games last year. . . Wakely now has points (6G-7A) in 10 of Barrie’s last 11 games. . . Sudbury outshot Barrie 26-23. . . Barrie was 2-for-4 on the power play, Sudbury 2-for-6.
