Petes exceed expectations on road trip
After seven games, Petes have wins over four of the OHL’s top teams
The Peterborough Petes are playing with house money now on their daunting stretch of nine road games to start the season.
Head coach Rob Wilson said prior to the season he’d be happy to get out of that stretch with a .500 record. They’ve already exceeded that goal with a 5-2 record following Wednesday’s 4-0 win over the Western Conference leading Saginaw Spirit of Michigan.
They’ve still got two games left to add to those totals starting Friday against the OHL’s only winless team, the Sarnia Sting (0-5-0-0) and Saturday versus the much improved Flint Firebirds (4-2-0-0), both 7 p.m. starts.
Once they complete a current stretch of six games in 10 days they’ll return home to prepare for their home opener Thursday at the renovated Memorial Centre against the Hamilton Bulldogs.
While on the road the Petes have beaten four teams who have appeared In the Kia CHL Top 10 rankings this season — the Ottawa 67’s, London Knights, Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds and Saginaw.
Hunter Jones improved to 5-0 this season with a 23-save shutout against Saginaw where the Petes blew open a 0-0 game with four third period goals. Nick Robertson had two points including a league leading ninth goal which extended his scoring streak to all seven games this season. Entering play Thursday night Robertson’s 15 points ranked second in the OHL, one behind Sudbury’s Quinton Byfield. Semyon Der-Arguchintsev ranked fourth at 14 points.
Jones’ 2.20 GAA ranked first among goalies with at least five starts and his .924 save percentage second. His five wins is second only to Oshawa’s Andrew MacLean with six.
“Starting on the road is definitely a challenge for us as a group,” said Jones, who picked up his fourth OHL shutout.
“It’s also a good thing for us. We’ve spent a lot of time together in hotels and have a lot of time to jell and bond and come together as a team. To be sitting at 5-2 is pretty great for us.
“We’re almost near the end of the road trip and if we can get a couple of more wins before we head back to Peterborough it would be huge for our team.”
Wilson said his team stacked up well against another of the OHL’s elite teams. They’ve picked up wins against top-end teams.
“We’re playing well,” Wilson said. “I was a little frustrated at times tonight because I thought we could have been more clinical at both ends of the rink but I really liked some of the stuff we did defensively in the first period. We only allowed them six shots but I thought we could have even been better. As a coach, that’s always how you feel.
“But we played a very good team and stuck to the process and got the job done in the third and had very solid goaltending from Jonesy. Our D was strong again and responsible back there.”
After some poor results on faceoffs early in the game the Petes won 70 per cent in the third, two leading directly to goals.
“Faceoff wins can win you a game defensively but they can also win you games offensively,” Wilson said.
“We wanted to win tonight and prove to ourselves we can play with the top teams in this league and we did that by beating Saginaw In Saginaw,” he said,