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| Puck drop between the London Knights and the Barrie Colts |
The Barrie Colts struck first blood in the Ontario Hockey League finals, beating the London Knights 4-2 in game one Friday evening.
Unlike the Niagara IceDogs from last season, they didn’t need double overtime.
The Colts grabbed the second-period lead and held off a late Knights rally in front of 9,046 at Budweiser Gardens.
"That's the plan," said Colts head coach Dale Hawerchuk. "You come in here and try to win the hockey game, and the boys were able to do that. Mathias [Niederberger] had a great game for us."
Niederberger, a German native and overager for Barrie was a rock in net, stopping 40 of 42 shots, not counting the numerous blocked shots as London turned up the pressure late in the third period searching for a tying goal.
His counterpart, Knights' Anthony Stolarz stopped 24 of 27 shots, making this the fifth straight start where he's let in three or more goals.
Ryan Rupert opened the scoring for the defending champions early in the second period, after a terrific pass from captain Scott Harrington. Ex Knight Andreas Athanasiou wasted no time to make a mark on his return to London and tied things up two minutes later, leading to a barrage of boos from the London faithful.
“We had our chances and didn’t bury on them,” lamented a sombre looking Knights head coach Dale
Hunter, “and that was the difference.”
Needing two goals for most of the third period, London’s Alex Broadhurst beat Niederberger glove high on the power play off a Claude Lemieux penalty, bringing the Knights to within one, which changed momentum drastically. From then on it was all London, all the way, Barrie escaping after two massive glove saves and a shot off the framework late on.
"The guys had confidence in front of him [Niederberger]," added Hawerchuk. "There's good unity between the players and the goaltender, and he's the backbone for us."
“I think we did a great job keeping the shots to the outside,” Niederberger, who was also named first star said . “It was our plan and we did that really well. We tried to give up shots from the outside and the boys did a really good job with that making it easier for me."
Lemieux, son of ex NHL-er Claude ended up with the game winner on the powerplay barely two minutes into the final period. Future Winnipeg Jet Mark Schiefele added the insurance late on via the empty net goal.
“It’s a bit of a wake-up call for us,” said Knights' Seth Griffith said. “I think (losing Game 1 is) going to make us play that much harder over the next couple of games.”
Game two of the OHL's Western Conference final did just that for London. They rallied back with two six goal outings in Plymouth to beat the Whalers in five straight.
Expect the Knights to come out in game two with a lot more shots on net. They went into the Kitchener and Saginaw series knowing that constantly peppering Saginaw's Jake Paterson and Kitchener's John GIbson would eventually lead to mistakes from the netminder.
And it did.
"On the powerplay we passed the puck too much," added Broadhurst. "We were getting too cute. Against Plymouth we shot every puck, going hard to the net. Now we had defenceman shooting the puck but no one at the net [for the rebound], that's got to change."
"We got to block a few more shots too, just like they did at key moments of the game," he added.
The Knights were without winger Josh Anderson and Matt Rupert, both still nursing lower body injuries.
Game two goes Sunday evening at 7:05 from the Bud Gardens.
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SUMMARY:
Colts 4, Knights 2
Barrie leads OHL championship series 1-0
Barrie goals: Andreas Athanasiou, Anthony Camara, Brendan Lemieux, Mark Scheifele (EN)
London goals: Ryan Rupert, Alex Broadhurst
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