Vees finish 4th in round robin, face hosts in semifinals
Penticton to play Cobourg on Saturday
Already assured of a berth in Saturday’s semifinal round, the Penticton Vees fell 3-1 to the Terrebonne Cougars in the final roundrobin game at the RBC Cup national JuniorA championship Thursday in Cobourg, Ont.
The Vees (2-1-1) finished fourth with six points and will face the host Cobourg Cougars — who won the round-robin — in the early semifinal at 11:30 a.m. PT on Saturday.
Third-place Terrebonne will take on the second-place Brooks Bandits in the other semifinal at 4:30 p.m. PT.
Cobourg defeated Brooks 5-2 in the roundrobin finale on Thursday night and finished with nine points, while the Bandits slipped to second with eight points.
The Vees and Terrebonne finished tied but the Cobras won the tiebreaker by virtue of the head-to-head win over Penticton.
Pierre-Anthony Martineau and Gabriel Paquin scored in a span of 1:18 late in the first period and player of the game Jeremy Belisle was sensational with 37 saves for Terrebonne (2-2-0).
Benjamin Bohemier had the other goal for the Quebec league champs, while Vees’ player of the game Owen Sillinger spoiled Belisle’s shutout bid 6:48 into the third. Mat Robson made 31 saves for the Vees. The Vees, who played Wednesday, came out sluggish with the Cobras recording the first five shots.
The Cobras also got the first big chance as Paquin was impeded from behind by Vees defenceman James Miller on a partial breakaway and was awarded a penalty shot.
Paquin overhandled the puck on a deke to the backhand and had it roll off his stick and harmlessly wide of Robson.
But a pair of marginal penalties handed the Cobras a 5-on-3 power play for 1:33 late in the period and Martineau rapped home a rebound that had dribbled between Robson’s pads at 18:02.
Then, with 40 seconds left, Martineau’s dump-in around the glass took a strange bounce and glanced off Robson’s skate right to Paquin for the easy tap-in.
The Vees had three power plays and a catalogue of scoring chances in the second period, but Bohemier got the only goal on a 2-on-1 break at 7:28 to make it 3-0. Martineau assisted to complete a three-point game.
The Vees kept coming in the third. Nicholas Jones appeared to have scored on an odd-man rush 25 seconds in, but the referee was in a good spot to rule the shot that beat Belisle hit the crossbar and did not cross the line.
Sillinger finally breached Belisle at 6:48, sweeping home a rebound of James Miller’s point shot from in tight. Mitch Meek also assisted.
Sillinger looked to have scored again on a rebound at 12:44, but the referee blew his whistle early after contending he’d lost sight of the puck.
Not wanting to risk giving up an empty-net goal due to the possibility of losing a potential tiebreaker, Vees head coach Fred Harbinson decided not to lift Robson for an extra attacker in the last few minutes.
ICE CHIPS: The Vees went 1-for-5 on the power play and finished 2-for-24 in the roundrobin . . . . Vees F Duncan Campbell was suspended for the game after picking up a major penalty in the last 10 minutes of Wednesday’s 4-0 win over Trenton. F Ryley Risling entered the lineup in place of Campbell, with the Vees again going with 11 forwards and seven defencemen . . . . Terrebonne also had two players suspended for major penalties assessed in its 6-1 loss to Cobourg on Tuesday . . . . Sunday’s championship game is a 2 p.m. PT puck-drop.