Petes take 3-0 stranglehold
Frontenacs outshoot Petes 34-17 but goalie Dylan Wells keeps Petes unbeaten in playoffs
KINGSTON – Peterborough Petes assistant coach Andrew Verner has a saying that a team should never apologize for having a good goalie.
The Petes have one and needed him Tuesday night as Dylan Wells’s 33-save performance was the main reason they escaped with a 3-1 win over the Kingston Frontenacs. The Petes grabbed a 3-0 stranglehold on the best-ofseven OHL Eastern Conference semifinal before 2,840 fans at the Rogers K-Rock Centre.
The Petes got off to a great start scoring 11 seconds into the game but were outshot 34-17 and outplayed significantly by the Frontenacs. Most of the breaks fell the Petes’ way on this night and Wells was the difference-maker.
“That was definitely the case tonight,” said Petes head coach Jody Hull. “It’s not too often you have the number of guys we did who, for whatever reason, weren’t very good but our main person was and he’s been like that for a number of games in the playoffs.”
“Dylan has had a tremendous year and he’s having a great post-season,” said Petes captain Brandon Prophet.
“Scott Smith is also very capable and we have confidence in both our goalies playing great moving forward. We’re a solid all-around team and our goalies are part of that. Dylan is a tremendous part of this team and a great character guy.”
Hull acknowledged it was Kingston’s best effort yet but he wasn’t satisfied at all with his group’s play.
“I don’t think our players really respected their work ethic enough tonight,” he said. “That’s demonstrated by the shots on net and the lack of winning any one-on-one battles.”
“It obviously didn’t go the way we drew things up,” said Prophet, “but we’re aware of what we need to bring to the next game. At this time of year the only thing that matters is the win.”
There was an 11-minute delay just 11 seconds into the game to confirm that Adam Timleck’s opening goal wasn’t off-side. Timleck wired a wrist shot just inside the Kingston blue-line goalie Jeremy Helvig never saw through a screen.
“We scored and then there was such a long delay,” Hull said. “It took any bit of momentum we might have generated from scoring that early out of the game for us. We made some uncharacteristic mistakes tonight we hadn’t been making in the previous games.”
The Petes caught a break midway through the period when Dylan Wells bobbled a puck that bounced to Trent Pringle who fired it over an open net. Wells was otherwise solid making a particularly tough save off a redirected shot on a Kingston power play. Kingston outshot the Petes 10-5 in the period.
Kingston hemmed the Petes in their end to start the second with Wells coming across his crease quickly to stop Cody Caron on a wraparound. Shots were 11-0 in the period after six minutes. The Petes first shot of the period came at 8:58.
The Petes went up by two when Steve Lorentz got the puck from Matt Spencer, spun and fired a shot and Semyon Der-Arguchintsev pounced on the rebound with 4:51 left in the second. Alex Black, who scored his first goal as a Pete in Game 2 with 30 seconds left in the second, scored with 40 seconds left in the second to make it 3-0. Black moved in off the point to one-time Brandon Prophet’s cross-ice pass.
KIngston thought they’d finally solved Wells with 8.8 seconds left in the second when Jason Robertson put Stephen Desrocher’s rebound in the back of the net. The goal was disallowed after video review showed the play was off-side bringing a chorus of boos from the fans. The Petes went to intermission up 3-0 despite being outshot 25-11.
Kingston finally scored on a power play with 6:41 remaining. Robertson deflected Eemeli Rasanen’s shot and it came to Linus Nyman who put his own rebound home.
The series continues at 7 p.m. Thursday in Kingston. If necessary, Game 5 is at 7:05 p.m. Saturday in Peterborough.