B’s back on win track
Battle for second and sixth playoff seed in Golden Horseshoe playoffs down to wire
This season’s Battle of Quaker Road in junior B hockey has ended in a split decision.
Matt Hobbs, Maliek Powell netted even-strength markers and Noah Blakely scored a shorthanded goal to give the visiting Welland Jr. Canadians a 3-1 victory over the Pelham Panthers Monday night.
Connor Brown’s goal late in the second period for Pelham tied the game at one-all heading into the third period.
Seventh-place Welland snapped a six-game losing streak and improved to 16-27-3-2 with two games remaining in the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League regular season.
With the win, the Jr. Canadians moved to within one point of the 1727-1-3 for sixth place in the nine-team Golden Horseshoe Conference.
Welland outshot Pelham 48-39 and finished the game 0-for-7 on the power play. The Panthers were 0-for4 with a man advantage.
The Jr. Canadians visit the Niagara Falls Canucks 7 p.m. Friday and close out league play with a home game Sunday versus the Fort Erie Meteors. Faceoff at Welland Arena is set for 7:05 p.m.
Pelham completes the regular season with a home-and-home against the Caledonia Corvairs on the weekend.
The Panthers visit the four-time defending conference champions 7:30 p.m. Saturday and are home for a 7 p.m. puck drop the following night.
Avalanche 4, Meteors 3 2OT
At Fort Erie, Benjamin Woodhouse’s goal 2:04 into the second overtime period kept Ancaster’s hopes alive to enter the Greater Ontario Junior Hockey League playoffs as the second seed in the Golden Horseshoe Conference.
Macklin McPhee, Dawson McKinney and Michael Cabral, on a penalty shot, scored in regulation for the Avalanche, currently third in the nineteam conference with a 36-10-1-1 record and two points behind the St. Catharines Falcons, 36-7-1-3.
Ancaster, winners of five in a row, has two games remaining in the regular season; St. Catharines, three.
The Falcons were scheduled to visit the 2-40-0-5 Buffalo Regals Tuesday.
Results of the sixth, and final, game in the season series were unavailable at press time, but a recap is posted online at niagarafallsreview.ca and wellandtribune.ca.
Marco Lariccia, Daniel Nardi, power play, and Luca Mazzo replied for the Meteors in a Family Day matinee at Fort Erie Leisureplex.
Ancaster swept head-to-head play with Fort Erie six wins to none, 12 points to three, by outshooting the Meteors 37-22 in the final meeting of the regular season.
Ancaster was 0-for-2 on the power play, while the hosts found the back of the net in one of their three opportunities to score with a man advantage.
The Avs visit the Falcons 7 p.m. Friday and host the Thorold Blackhawks 7:30 p.m. Saturday to close out the regular season.
Fort Erie’s 10th loss in a row dropped the team’s record to 9-31-16 with two games remaining in league play.
TheMeteorshostBuffalo,Saturday, 7:15 p.m., and visit Welland, Sunday, 7:05 p.m.; in their remaining games in the regular season.
As the eighth, and final, seed in the Golden Horseshoe, Fort Erie will open post-season play against the regular-season champion Caledonia Corvairs, 43-4-0-1.
Ancaster will play either Pelham or Welland in the quarter-finals.
Corvairs 3, Blackhawks 2 OT
At Caledonia, Jesse Barwell scored two goals, including the game-winner 1:23 into overtime, as the host Corvairs came back to defeat Thorold.
Brendan Charlton and Mitch Britton scored power-play goals to put Thorold up 2-1 nine seconds into the second period in Monday night’s game at Haldimand Centre.
Barwell forced overtime at the 11:43 mark of the middle frame as Thorold’s Anthony Tremonte and Caledonia’s Pierce Charleson matched each other save-for-save the rest of the way in regulation.
Jeff Lindsay opened the scoring for the Corvairs, who outshot the Blackhawks 41-19.
Thorold went 2-for-5 on the power play; Caledonia, 0-for-4.
The fifth-place Blackhawks fell to 19-21-3-5 and will open the playoffs against the fourth-seeded Niagara Falls Canucks, 31-13-0-4.