Meteors finish one game under .500
Giovanni DeNardi’s goal with less than a minute remaining in regulation gave the Welland Junior Canadians a 4-3 victory over the Fort Erie Meteors in their final game of the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League season.
“The game plan was to not get injured or suspended, playoffs are around the corner,” Junior Canadians head coach Keith Osborne said. “I’m happy we got the victory heading into the playoffs, it’s a real confidence booster.”
Fort Erie got into penalty trouble early in Sunday night’s game at Welland Arena, where the hosts were able capitalize on powerplay opportunities on special teams. Welland scored two goals when it had a man advantage and Matt Martin netted a shorthanded goal.
“We talked about undisciplined hockey all night long,” Meteors head coach Todd Clayton said.
“We knew we would be OK 5-on5, but we really needed to stay out of the box and, once we did that, we began to take over.”
The Meteors ended the regular season one game under .500 with a record of 24-26.
Fort Erie’s second loss in as many nights – the team dropped a 6-3 decision at home to the Niagara Falls Canucks on Saturday – also gave Welland the season series four wins to two.
In their last 10 games of the regular season, the Meteors went 6-4 record, including two 5-0 forfeit wins over the Thorold Blackhawks.
Fort Erie enters the playoffs in the junior B league’s Golden Horseshoe Conference as the No. 5 seed and will open post-season play against the fourth-seeded Ancaster Avalanche.
The Avalanche, 30-15-0-5; closed out the season with a 6-3-0-1 record that included a forfeit win over Thorold in their final game of the season Saturday night in Ancaster.
The Avs won the season series against Fort Erie four wins to two, nine points to four, but the Meteors won the last two meetings.
Goals for and against heading into the four-five playoff matchup also is close. In six games of head-t0-head play Ancaster only outscored Fort Erie 18-12.
Welland, which enters post-season play as the No. 6 seed, opens the playoffs on the road Friday against the third-seeded Niagara Falls Canucks. Welland centre Matt Hobbs said he is looking forward to lining up against highscoring Niagara Falls rookie Harrison Cottam in the best-of-seven, quarter-final series.
“He just signed with the London Knights, so he’s a very good player and someone to keep our eye on. We will need to get under his skin for sure,” Hobbs said with a smile.
“We have to make sure we are going hard these next couple of practices,” Hobbs stated.
“I really feel like we can make some noise in the playoffs and upset the Canucks.”
“We look like the underdog right now, but I have a lot of faith in these guys to bring their all, and if we do that we can get past them.”