Petes fight from behind again
Petes win in shootout over Fronts to keep pace with Oshawa Generals in first-place race
KINGSTON – If you don’t put the Peterborough Petes away early, chances are you’ll regret it later.
Despite a dreadful start the Petes pulled off their seventh straight road win, improving to 12-1 when tied after two periods, with a 4-3 shootout win over the Kingston Frontenacs on Friday night.
With 13 regular season games left, the Petes are tied with the Oshawa Generals atop the OHL’s Eastern Conference. Oshawa, 5-4 shootout winners against the Ottawa 67’s, holds a game in hand.
Scott Smith made 37 saves through 65 minutes and two more in the shootout while Nikita Korostelev, a ridiculous sevenfor-seven in the shootout this season, and Steve Lorentz tallied to give the Petes the win.
Lorentz slipped the puck through goalie Jeremy Helvig’s pads before Smith stopped Nathan Billitier to seal the victory.
The Petes were lucky to trail only 1-0 after being outshot 18-5 in the first period but had it tied 2-2 after two periods. “We have to stop (these slow starts),” Lorentz said. “We have to come out a little bit more prepared each night. I don’t think that’s on the coaches, it’s on the players to recognize that come playoff time, if we sit back for the first 20 minutes it’s not going to be as nice as it’s been lately.
“These come-from-behind wins are nice and it shows how much character we have as a team but you really don’t want to be fighting from behind this time of year.”
Kingston forced overtime by scoring with 3.5 seconds left on what the Petes thought might be an off-side play. Kingston rookie Nathan Dunkley gained the zone and fed a pass to Linus Nyman who backhanded the puck underneath the crossbar. After a lengthy review linesman Brandon Yuck said video was inconclusive so the goal stood.
“We questioned it but it was hard to tell because the puck was up in the air,” said Petes coach Jody Hull. “You really couldn’t see where the puck was in correlation to the blue-line. They didn’t have enough angles to really say.”
Both teams had chances in a hectic overtime in which the Petes killed a Chris Paquette holding penalty.
Hull said he briefly debated with assistant coach Andrew Verner about starting Korostelev on the shootout but agreed they couldn’t not start him.
“His hands are so quick in tight,” Hull said. “I’m sure it’s tough for a goalie because you don’t know if it’s going to be a shot or a deke. He puts fear in guys because of his skill-set.”
The Petes were lucky to escape the first period down just 1-0. Sam Harding put a turnover past Smith but no one else beat him. Smith made four quick saves in succession on one flurry alone.
“Our goaltenders have given us an opportunity pretty much every game to get victories,” Hull said. “Scott is playing extremely well right now and made some big saves when he had to.”
The Petes tied it 8:24 into the second as Korostelev found Lorentz trailing a three-on-two rush and he popped a shot top corner.
Kingston regained the lead 2:24 later when Stephen Desrocher drilled a point shot through a crowd. Three minutes later Kyle Jenkins pinched in to snap Paquette’s pass home making it 2-2.
Jonathan Ang gave the Petes their first lead 7:36 into the third swiping a puck, as he was falling, past Helvig. NOTES: Cole Fraser was a late scratch. Petes GM Mike Oke said Fraser is nursing an upper body injury .... Zach Gallant was given clearance to resume light workouts after visiting an eye specialist Friday, said Mike Oke. If all goes well Gallant will resume skating early in the week. Gallant suffered an eye injury from a high stick in Ottawa last week.