Paquette pots a pair in close Petes road win
Newly acquired centre Max Grondin scores his first goal with the Petes
KINGSTON — It’s not often an empty-net goal turns out to be a game winner.
Chris Paquette’s second goal of the game with 1:45 left into an empty-net looked to be an insurance marker for the Peterborough Petes on Friday night.
The Kingston Frontenacs struck 24 seconds later to make it 4-3 and Petes goalie Hunter Jones had to make some late saves to preserve the Petes victory before 3,226 fans at the Leon’s Centre.
It was the Petes’ second straight win and snapped a four-game losing streak on the road. The Petes (11-7-0) sit in third place in the OHL’s Eastern Conference. Kingston (4-12-1) lost its third in a row.
Paquette, a Kingston native, made it 4-2 but Luke Drewitt pushed the puck in during a scramble with 1:21 left to make for a tense ending.
The Petes had a chance to go in front with the teams playing four-on-four three minutes in. Pavel Gogolev weaved his way past a check into prime scoring range and dished the puck to Semyon Der-Arguchintsev but Frontenacs’ goalie Brendan Bonello threw out his pad to make the save.
The Petes held the edge in play in the opening 20 minutes, outshooting Kingston 13-5, and were rewarded with a late goal.
Max Grondin, in his second game since being acquired from the Saginaw Spirit, potted his first goal with Peterborough. Declan Chisholm fired a shot that came off the back boards and hit off Nick Isaacson’s stick and Grondin pounced on it at 18:31.
Austin Osmanski tied up Jason Robertson to take away a scoring chance on a rebound on the next shift. The Petes went down and got two opportunities with Bonello making successive stops on Paquette and Liam Kirk.
Robertson fired a shot off the blocker of Jones and then the crossbar on a Kingston power play early in the second period.
Paquette drove a lane to the net with the puck but Bonello whipped out his glove to snag his shot six minutes into the second.
The Frontenacs tied it with Grondin in the penalty box for high sticking. Jones made a tough stop on Hastings native Jakob Brahaney but on the shift, Brett Neumann cashed in a backhand after the puck emerged from behind the Petes’ net at 9:20.
Things started to open up with four goals in a 4:17 span.
The teams began trading chances including a Gogolev breakaway deke that was stopped by Bonello.
A minute later Paquette broke in on a two-on-one and elected to shoot snapping it under Bonello’s blocker arm at 12:19. Chisholm picked up another assist giving him five in two games as he leads the Petes in scoring with 17 points in 18 games.
The Frontenacs tied it 1:13 later when Matt Hotchkiss shovelled the puck home after Dawson Baker hit the crossbar.
The Petes regained the lead for a third time 65 seconds later as Cole Fraser one snuck a point shot past Bonello for his third goal of the season.
Both teams nailed iron a minute apart late in the second as Brady Hinz hit a crossbar and Ian Derungs rung one off the goal post.
The Petes are off for three days before a rare Tuesday home game against the Kitchener Rangers 7:05 p.m. at the Memorial Centre.
NOTES: The three stars were 1. Matt Hotchkiss (K); 2. Brett Neumann (K); 3. Chris Paquette (P)…. The hardest working Pete was Max Grondin…. The Petes iced the same lineup as Thursday’s 3-2 overtime win over Oshawa.… The Petes were zero-for-three on the power play extending their drought to zero-for-26 dating back to an Oct. 13 home game against Windsor.