Blowout ends Petes’ season
Peterborough Petes’ season ends in 7-0 loss in Mississauga
Peterborough Petes' centre Steven Lorentz, second from right, and his teammates react to their 7-0 loss to the Mississauga Steelheads in Game 4 of the OHL Eastern Conference Final at the Hershey Centre in Mississauga on Wednesday. The Petes lost 7-0 and were swept in the series.
MISSISSAUGA – The Peterborough Petes best season in 11 years came to a surprising and disappointing end Wednesday night.
After sweeping their first two playoff series few would have predicted the Petes would befall the same fate against the Mississauga Steelheads. The fact the deciding game was 7-0, before 2,744 at the Hershey Centre, added insult to injury.
The Steelheads collected the Bobby Orr Trophy as OHL Eastern Conference champions. They advance to the OHL final where they’ll face the winner of the Erie Otters and Owen Sound Attack series currently tied 2-2.
After finishing first in the conference in the regular season and brushing aside the Niagara IceDogs and Kingston Frontenacs in short order this wasn’t the result the Petes anticipated. Two of the four games were close but the Steelheads were clearly the better team outscoring the Petes 17-4. Ex-Pete Matt Mancina picked up two shutouts. The Petes relied on their depth all season but not one player beyond their first line had a point in the series. Dylan Wells was their best player but even he wilted in the deciding game under relentless pressure.
“Obviously, we came in with higher expectations than what happened,” said Petes’ coach Jody Hull. “Give Mississauga credit. They were running on all cylinders from their goalie on out and they’ve been doing that now for the last six to eight weeks.”
Hull said his biggest disappointment is he doesn’t think his team played close to its capabilities against Mississauga. “We didn’t play one game in this series where we executed and did things we did in the first two series,” Hull said. “Taking nothing away from how Mississauga plays, we didn’t execute as a group. That’s what makes it harder because it’s tough to really see where you stack up. In four games we had four guys get points where we had (17) guys get points in our first playoff series. That’s quite a transformation from series one to series three.”
When asked how his team shut down the Petes secondary scoring, Mississauga coach James Richmond said: “Our guys really, really played hard defensive hockey. I know everyone keeps talking about the skill and talent we have but we have a very, very strong defensive structure. If we don’t have the puck, something is wrong. So we have to get it back.
“They’ve got a great team,” he said. “They’ve got some great players. I think our guys played hard defensively to make it hard for them to get the scoring chances.”
Petes’ veteran and Peterborough native Logan DeNoble reflected on some of the positives of a season that had many more highs than lows; despite a tough ending.
“I think we put Peterborough back on the map in the hockey community,” said DeNoble. “We had great support from our fans all year. It’s tough right now but I think we’re pretty proud of the season we had.”
Despite some good energy and creating more offensive chances in the first period than the previous two games, the Petes trailed 2-0 after 20 minutes.
Peterborough native Owen Tippett opened the scoring at 9:29 putting Trent Fox’s twoon-one pass in the open side. The Steelheads struck 2:15 later as Stephen Leblanc turned the play up-ice quickly to Michael McLeod who found his brother Ryan cutting through the high slot where he snapped a shot home.
One got the sense it wasn’t going to be the Petes’ night when Vili Saarijarvi put a shot from just inside the blue-line over Wells’s shoulder 2:05 into the second.
The Petes had a chance to get back in the game on a power play but Nikita Korostelev hit a crossbar and Semyon Der-Arguchintsev a goal post.
Mississauga went up by three shortly after when Jacob Moverare’s shot from a severe angle along the Petes’ goal line found the inside of the far post. Fox made it 5-0 before the period ended hammering a shot from the top of the faceoff circle.
Michael McLeod broke into the Petes’ zone and put a shot through Wells’s legs 33 seconds into the third. Brendan Harrogate rounded out the scoring with the first goal of the series not scored by Mississauga’s top two lines.
NOTES: Zach Gallant was named as the Petes’ nominee to the OHL’s All Academic Team Wednesday for a second straight year. Steelheads defenceman Stephen Gibson was named the Roger Neilson Memorial Award winner as top post-secondary student. He attends Ryerson University. Ottawa 67’s forward Sasha Chmelevski was the OHL Academic Player-of-the-Year ... The Petes iced the same lineup as Game 3 with Matt Timms and Adam Timleck both out with upper body injuries.