Petes rally falls short in 16th straight road loss
OWEN SOUND – Two streaks continued Saturday night despite a gutsy effort from the Peterborough Petes after an early deficit.
The Owen Sound Attack clinched a playoff spot with their 10th straight win at home 4-3 over the Petes who lost their club record 16th consecutive road game on Saturday night.
Led by Pavel Gogolev’s two goals the Petes rallied from an early 2-0 deficit to get back to even before falling short. It left the Petes seven points behind the Mississauga Steelheads for the final Eastern Conference playoff spot. The Petes have nine games remaining in the regular season.
The Petes tied it and had a power play late in the second period when they took a penalty to cancel it and Owen Sound scored with the teams playing four-on-four.
“That really changed the game,” said Petes’ interim coach Andrew Verner. “We were playing a 16-yearold goalie and our message was to test him and we certainly didn’t test him enough. Guys are playing big minutes and we’re short-staffed, for sure, so it was a gutsy effort but a little bit more frustrating than some of the other losses because we had them 2-2 on the road with a power play.”
A night after Jonah Gadjovich set the Attack franchise record for fastest goal to start a game, 10 seconds against the Guelph Storm, Nick Suzuki scored 47 seconds into the first period against Peterborough. Suzuki danced into the slot to take a puck off the boards and slip it past Dylan Wells on a deke with the puck just dribbling over the line.
The Petes kept the Attack’s top line of Gadjovich, Suzuki and Kevin Hancock off the scoresheet in their lone visit to Peterborough earlier this season. This time the line counted all four goals including two in the opening 3:47. The second goal was a give-and-go that Hancock finished off a Suzuki backhand pass from the slot.
Being on the road, Verner said he couldn’t get the same defensive match-ups against that line he did at home.
“We had no match for their speed early” said Verner. “It looked like it
was going to get away from us for sure. It was a big goal by Gogo at the end of the period to settle things down. Wellsy got us through the first with some big saves halfway through the period.”
Gogolev continued to hold a hot hand drawing the Petes within a goal with 1:51 left in the first. He deked past an Attack defender and fired a shot that deflected off Attack forward Ethan Szypula’s rear-end past goalie Mack Guzda.
A hard Petes’ forecheck forced a turnover and Gogolev pounced on Zach Gallant’s rebound to tie it 12:49 into the second. Gogolev has six goals in five games and leads the Petes with 26.
It was the Attack’s turn for a late period goal as Hancock took advantage of a fortunate bounce to make it 3-2 at 18:31. Suzuki deflected Cole Cameron’s point shot off the glass and it landed on Hancock’s stick where he tucked it between Wells and the near post.
The Attack went up by two 6:38 into the third when Cameron took Suzuki’s pass and ripped his first goal of the season top shelf.
Nikita Korostelev made it 4-3 midway through the third curling the puck close to his body then unleashing a shot under the crossbar for his 25th goal of the season.
NOTES: Cole Fraser returned Saturday after missing nearly three weeks with an upper body injury. Declan Chisholm returned after missing Thursday’s game to illness. The Petes learned Cameron Supryka
Attack 4 Petes 3
Petes record: 22-31-6-6
Attack record: 31-20-2-5
3-stars: 1. Nick Suzuki (O); 2. Pavel Gogolev (P); 3. Kevin Hancock (O) Hardest Working Pete: Chris Paquette
Next for the Petes: Host London Knights 7:05 p.m. Thursday at the PMC. is out day-to-day after suffering an upper body injury playing for the Lindsay Muskies on Friday. The Petes dressed 10 forwards and seven defencemen with Logan DeNoble, Adam Timleck, Matt Timms and Nick Isaacson all sidelined, the latter two for the season.