Hinz scores in shootout in Petes win
Peterborough Petes head coach Rob Wilson liked the fight he saw in his team’s first pre-season home game Sunday afternoon.
The Petes fought back, literally and on the scoresheet, in rallying to beat the Oshawa Generals 6-5 in a shootout before 1,497 fans at the Memorial Centre.
Brady Hinz gave the Petes their first lead at 5-4, after trailing 4-2. Hinz also scored the lone shootout goal while goalie Hunter Jones stopped four consecutive Generals shooters.
One of Wilson’s priorities as new head coach is to build team chemistry. When Zach Gallant jumped in to fight Nico Gross after the General rammed Adam Timleck from behind it sparked the Petes. Adrien Beraldo was involved in a fight on the same play and 16-year-old rookie Cameron Butler later showed he can more than handle himself in his first OHL fight.
Wilson was a hard-nosed player known for his toughness and while by no means does he expect to see his team fight a lot, he liked how they stuck up for each other.
“You need team togetherness,” Wilson said.
“We want to make sure we have our discipline and want to be really smart how we play and we talked about that. But, sometimes things happen on the ice and it’s important to make sure you’re together as a team and working together. I think they showed they are a team.”
Timleck, who had a goal and assist, said it was reassuring to see Gallant had his back.
“It showed we’re always going to have each other’s backs,” Timleck said.
“Already I see that we have a pretty tight-knit group. I think you saw that today. Two guys jumped In when I got hit.”
After a 5-2 loss on the road against the Guelph Storm on Saturday night, a score Wilson said doesn’t reflect his team’s performance, the Petes trailed Oshawa 4-2 after two periods. Wilson was encouraged to see good energy in the third as they mounted a comeback.
Semyon Der-Arguchintsev, who earlier set up a Pavel Gogolev goal, made it 4-3 6:42 into the third going to the slot to convert John Parker-Jones’s pass. Timleck snapped in Chris Paquette’s pass on a power play at 8:05 tying it. Hinz struck at 12:23 when Liam Kirk redirected Parker-Jones’s shot on Mario Peccia and Hinz banged in the rebound.
“You could see the legs were going in the second half,” Wilson said.
“We played last night and had an early game today after travel back and I was really proud of the effort we put in. They showed they want to be here and that they want to work.
“I wasn’t happy with a couple of goals we gave up in the second but I thought maybe that was tiredness.
“I loved the fight back.”
Gallant had the other goal while Austin Osmanski, Nick Robertson and Jones also had assists.
“Rob has done an amazing job of implementing his new systems and I think everyone is buying in,” said Timleck. “We got down early but he was positive on the bench which made all of us positive and we battled through.”
Nando Eggenberger led Oshawa with a hat trick tying the game with 1:23 left to force the shootout. Jack Studnicka and Allan McShane also scored.
In Guelph, Paquette had a goal and assist and Matt McNamara also scored. Robertson had one assist. Tye Austin stopped 15 of 16 shots in the Petes’ net while
Blake Curran stopped seven of 11.
“We were playing well,” said Wilson. “At one point the shots were 10-3 and we were down 2-0. Up 10-3 you don’t expect to be down but some unlucky bounces, not something you could sit and point a finger at. One bounced way up in the air and floated over everybody.
“We kept a team that is supposed to be pretty good in the west under 30 shots on the road. We have a lot of work to do but I’m happy from what I’ve seen in both games.”
There are no OHL exhibition games this week with players attending NHL rookie camps and tournaments. The Petes return Sept. 13 to host the Kingston Frontenacs at 7:05 p.m. at the PMC.