Falcons confident going into Game 2

Three-minute breakdown contributes to loss

Frank Girhiny felt good going into Good Friday action in the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League

Yes, the Caledonia Corvairs beat his St. Catharines Falcons in the opening game of the Golden Horseshoe Conference finals and, yes, they did so decisively, by a 6-0 margin.

However, the junior B team’s general manager and coach took away more positives than negatives from the first game in the best-of-seven series. The final score, he said, was not indicative of how the seconded-seed Falcons played the No. 1 seed for much of Wednesday night’s game in Caledonia.

“All in all, we played a really good first two periods,” Girhiny said. “We played real well, we had a number of chances where we missed one.”

The Corvairs took a two-goal lead into the third period in Wednesday night’s game after “we made two bad mistakes with the puck.

“It’s not like they did something to beat us.”

A three-minute breakdown on the part of the Falcons resulted in three Caledonia goals and a 1-0 deficit heading in Game 2 last night at Jack Gatecliff Arena in St. Catharines.

“The end result? We wanted to have a good effort,” Girhiny said. “We did that for two periods, and we had a little bit of a meltdown in the third.

“But I expect us to bounce right back on Friday.”

Six of the Falcons’ top nine forwards weren’t in the lineup.

“That’s pretty tough, but we have no excuse, we played them really well,” he said. “We’re getting a bunch of bodies back Friday night.

“That will give us a good opportunity to give us a chance to win on Friday.”

The Falcons weren’t surprised by how the Corvairs hit the ice for their first game in more than a week.

“What we saw is what we expected,” Girhiny said. “There was no wake-up call at all.”

Pierce Charleson made 31 saves backstopping Caledonia to the victory.

Adam Craievich, with a hat trick; Jesse Barwell, Andrew Burns and Bobby Harrison scored goals as the Corvairs improved to 9-1 in this year’s playoffs with Wednesday night’s win in Caledonia.

Shots on net were 37-31 in favour of the No. 1 seed Corvairs, who finished the game 1-for-4 on the power play. St. Catharines went 0-for-6 with a man advantage.

Rust wasn’t a factor for a Caledonia team that was playing its first game since eliminating the Niagara Falls Canucks from post-season play in a five-game semifinal March 21.

In comparison, the Falcons were back on ice only two nights after defeating the Ancaster Avalanche in Game 7 in the other semifinal series in the junior B league’s Golden Horseshoe Conference.

Four-time defending conference champion Caledonia is playing in the final for the fifth year in a row. This is St. Catharines’ seventh consecutive appearance in the final two.

The Falcons won the regular-season series against the Corvairs four wins to two. They outscored Caledonia 23-18 in head-to-head play.

Game 3 is 7:30 p.m. Saturday at Haldimand Centre with the fourth game back at The Jack for a 7 p.m. puck drop Monday.

Caledonia is seeking its fourth Sutherland Cup championship in five years, while the Falcons are going for their second and first since 2012.