Gogo gets Petes going
Forward scores hat trick in crucial win over Fish to pull within four points of final playoff spot
The Peterborough Petes aren’t ready to concede a playoff spot yet.
The Petes gave their playoff hopes a spark of life with a convincing 6-1 win over the team they are chasing, the Mississauga Steelheads before 2,974 fans at the Memorial Centre on Thursday night.
The Petes pulled within four points of Mississauga for the final OHL Eastern Conference playoff spot. The Petes have 13 regular season games left and Mississauga 14.
Pavel Gogolev’s hat trick led the charge while Dylan Wells turned aside – shots. Chris Paquette and Bobby Dow chipped in a goal and assist each.
The Petes outscored Mississauga 4-0 over the final 40 minutes.
The teams exchanged goals on the same power play for the only two markers of the first period.
The Steelheads scored shorthanded 5:38 into the game with Ryan McLeod in the penalty box for tripping. NIcolas Hague sprung Mathieu Foget and Peterborough native Owen Tippett on a two-onone and the forwards played giveand-go with Foget beating Wells blocker side.
One second before McLeod returned to the ice Gogolev tied it. Austin Osmanski barely kept a puck in at the blue-line and Nikita Korostelev fed a pass that Gogolev one-timed over Jacob Ingham’s pad. Korostelev, a runner-up for OHL player-of-the-week last week, has 10 points in a five-game scoring streak.
Tippett pulled the puck in tight to use a Petes defender as a screen and ripped a shot off the crossbar in the dying seconds of the opening frame.
For the second time in as many meetings with Mississauga the Petes had a goal disallowed by an off-side called after a lengthy video review. Osmanski jumped into a rush to convert Korostelev’s pass but it was all for nothing 3:04 into the second period. In their last meeting Zach Gallant had an overtime goal overturned and the Steelheads scored a minute later to win it at the Hershey Centre.
This time the Petes shook it off and responded 1:18 later with a goahead goal on Gogolev’s second of the night. Dow dumped the puck in and Gogolev retrieved it behind the Steelheads’ net and circled out front to roof the puck under the crossbar.
Paquette had a glorious shorthanded opportunity 90 seconds later but was stopped by Ingham on a breakaway. He also stopped Gogolev on a breakaway a couple of minutes later with Thomas Harley draped over the Petes forward. Wells made a big stop on ex-Pete Ian McKinnon on a short break on the next shift.
Petes rookie Nick Robertson continued his hot streak bumping the lead to 3-1 with his seventh goal in six games. Robertson one-timed a pass off the wing from Paquette to score for a fourth game in a row. Robertson has more goals in the past six games than he did in the first 43 this season.
Paquette made it 4-1 at 4:42 of the third taking a pass from Matt Timms and after crossing the blueline listed a shot inside the post.
Gogolev capped the hat trick on a power play at 18:02 after stealing the puck from a defender.