Road losses virtually extinguish Petes’ playoff hopes
The fat lady hasn't yet begun to sing but she's almost done warming up. Two weekend road losses, extending their club record to 18 straight away from home, virtually extinguished the Peterborough Petes playoff hopes. With six regular season games left a Petes regulation time loss or Mississauga Steelheads win will eliminate the Petes from the playoffs. After losing 4-2 to the Niagara IceDogs Sunday afternoon and 9-3 to he Erie Otters Saturday night the Petes are 11 points behind Mississauga who beat Erie 7-2 on Sunday. The Petes next opponent is Mississauga Thursday at the PMC. The Petes were tied with Erie early in the third and rallied from a 3-0 deficit against Niagara to within 3-2 in the third but couldn't finish off either game. Logan DeNoble scored twice, giving him five goals in three weekend games, and Dylan Wells made 34 saves to keep it close against Niagara. Wells, making potentially his last OHL start in his hometown of St. Catharines, stopped 16 of 17 first period shots. The only one Niagara scored on was disputed. Bradey Johnson's goal was originally waved off as being directed in by his hand. It was changed to a goal when video review showed William Lochead's shot deflected off Johnson's arm. Oliver Castleman converted Daniel Singer's rebound to make it 2-0 early in the second. Ben Jones backhanded Sam Miletic's goalmouth pass with 2:47 left in the second to make it 3-0. The Petes got one back on a five-minute power play with Lochead ejected for a cross checking major penalty. DeNoble scored in his third straight game off a pass from Adam Timleck as his shot knuckleballed past goalie Stephen Dhillon 43 seconds into the third. DeNoble capitalized again with 5:32 left after Nikita Korostelev did the heavy lifting. Korostelev dangled through a couple of checks and dished to DeNoble who made no mistake. Miletic dashed the Petes' hopes with an empty-net tally. On Saturday night, the Petes tied Erie 3-3 on Cole Fraser's goal 2;44 into the third period. Patrick Fellows scored on a power play 2:17 later and the Petes fell apart in the final 3:12 when Erie reeled off five goals to run up the sixgoal differential. DeNoble gave the Petes a 1-0 lead 45 seconds into the game and Nick Robertson made it 2-1 before the teams ended the first period 2-2. Ivan Lodnia's short-handed goal was the lone second period marker. Otters' goalie Anand Oberoi punched the puck out of the air and Lodnia grabbed it for a breakaway beating goalie Hunter Jones. Erie's final three goals were 30 seconds apart in the final minute. Maxim Golod scored twice for Erie while Gera Poddubny, Chad Yetman, Stephane Patry, Joseph Mack and Emmett Sproule added singles.