Petes aiming to break road loss streak

The Peterborough Petes are looking to take what they did at home on Thursday onto the road Saturday night.

The Petes put together a solid 60 minutes while scoring just enough to best the Kingston Frontenacs 3-1 at the Memorial Centre. It was their fourth straight win on home ice.

Now they head to Owen Sound to take on the Attack at 7:30 p.m. looking to end a franchise-worst 15-game losing streak on the road.

“We just have to play the same way,” said Petes assistant coach Derrick Walser. “When you go on the road you have to battle almost twice as hard because the other team wants to win at home as well. When you go on the road there is less pressure to be fancy or pretty. When you go on the road you play a simple game and you let them make the mistakes. We’ve been going on the road stressing ourselves out. We just need to play the game the right way and it should be no difference what ice surface you play on.”

The Petes were hopeful Logan DeNoble and Cole Fraser might be ready to return from upper body injuries depending on how they felt after skating Friday. Both Kingston and the Petes were depleted of a combined 11 regulars out of the lineup due to injury or illness.

The Petes took a 2-1 lead into the third period and killed two penalties in the final four minutes to gut out the win. Zach Gallant clinched the win with a short-handed, empty-net tally with four seconds left. Pavel Gogolev and Bobby Dow also scored.

Petes rookie blueliner Adrien Beraldo said the key to success was keeping it simple.

“Kingston is a good team,” said Beraldo. “Our game plan was to play simple, chip pucks in and play hard. Do all the little things right and that will eventually translate into the score. They scored a goal but we didn’t let that affect us. We kept on going and blocked shots and got pucks out off the glass. It was a good team effort.”

The Petes will also need more of the goaltending they got from Dylan Wells who out-duelled Kingston rookie Brendan Bonello. Wells stopped 31 shots to Bonello’s 29 saves.

“Their goalie played great,” said Wells. “Bonello made some big saves. The score could have been a little higher than it was. We had a couple of breakaways and a couple of Grade A chances. Credit to him, he kept his team in there. Those games are always fun when it’s a one-goal game and it’s tight like that and comes down to the wire.”

Entering play Friday night, the Petes trailed the Mississauga Steelheads by five points for the final Eastern Conference playoff spot. The Steelheads hosted the NIagara IceDogs on Friday night but a score was not available at press time. Both the Petes and Steelheads have 10 games remaining after Friday.