Petes sweep IceDogs
Opening round playoff series sweep is first playoff series sweep for Petes since they swept out Knights in 2006
ST. CATHARINES – How sweep it is.
The Peterborough Petes completed their first playoff series sweep since they beat the London Knights in the 2006 OHL final by ousting the NIagara IceDogs 6-2 before 5,081 fans at the Meridian Centre on Thursday night.
It’s the first playoff win for the Petes since 2014 and just their second since 2006 but this year’s edition has bigger ambitions after their Eastern Conference regular season title. They’ll now have to wait to see who their conference semifinal opponent will be as none of the other three conference series are completed.
The second seed Mississauga Steelheads are up 3-1 on the Ottawa 67’s. The other two series are tied 2-2 between the third seed Oshawa Generals and Sudbury Wolves and the fourth seed Kingston Frontenacs against the Hamilton Bulldogs. The second round of playoffs will not begin before Wednesday. The Petes will face the lowest remaining seed.
Jonathan Ang and Nick Isaacson had three-point efforts including key goals by Ang in the final minute of the first and second periods. Dylan Wells made 37 saves to win his second straight start in his hometown.
The Petes continued to get contributions from throughout the lineup as they did all series. Eight players averaged a point-per-game or better and 17 of the 19 skaters who dressed in the series notched at least one point. Matt Spencer was an impressive +10 while Ang fired five goals and an assist in the series, Steve Lorentz four goals and two assists and Zach Gallant six assists.
Petes head coach Jody Hull, announced earlier in the day as a finalist for OHL coach-of-the-year, said it’s been a process for fourplus years to get to this point. He wants the players to enjoy the win with a couple of days off and then it’s back to business.
“This is rewarding for everyone for some hard work,” Hull said. “We’ve had lots of buy-in this year and some real solid leadership the last couple of years that has created a good environment in our dressing room.”
“This is only the second time I’ve been able to make it to the second round,” Spencer said. “The first one was in my first year when we had to come back in a real tough series against Kingston. I don’t think we were the same team as the one we have assembled this year. I’m just looking forward to seeing how far we can go.”
“We have a lot of good chemistry on this team,” said Isaacson, who had a goal and two assists for his first three-point OHL game. “Before the game we said we didn’t want to have to play another game. We wanted to finish if off tonight.
“We’re not satisfied, yet,” said Isaacson. “We haven’t really done anything in our eyes yet. It’s just one round.”
Niagara opened the scoring on a goal 14:12 in that was originally waved off as being kicked in. After video review Kirill Maksimov was awarded a goal as Johnny Corneil’s pass deflected off his skate.
The Petes leapfrogged Niagara for a 2-1 lead late in the period with goals 1:53 apart. Josh Coyle buried Ang’s goal-mouth pass for his third goal in three games at 17:53. Ang slipped into the slot to convert Nikita Korostelev’s pass with 14.2 seconds left in the period.
The Petes fourth line bumped the lead to 3-1 at 3:10 of the second. Matyas Svoboda’s pass deflected to Isaacson who snapped it in the open side.
Niagara cashed in on a third straight power play t draw within a goal at 9:09. Daniel Singer was set up in the slot by Oliver Castleman. Ang scored in the final minute onetiming Isaacson’s pass through Stephen Dhillon’s legs making it 4-2 after 40 minutes.
Logan DeNoble stuck a dagger in Niagara’s comeback hopes with his first series goal 3:02 into the third. He twisted his way out front