It may still end in tears and the odds are still firmly stacked against them, but the Barrie Colts have lived to fight another day.
Riding a goaltending performance for the ages by Sam Hillebrandt and overcoming some bad luck from three previous losses, the Colts beat the Oshawa Generals 3-0 on the road in Game 5 on Friday night.
The Generals now lead the best-of-seven Ontario Hockey League Eastern Conference quarterfinal series 3-2, with Game 6 set for Sunday at Sadlon Arena.
Game time is 6 p.m.
The series has been full of examples of how you’d have to be the most miserable killjoy not to love major junior hockey, especially at playoff time.
It all started when the Colts halted the Generals’ 12-game winning streak last Friday night with a 4-2 victory to open the series. It was the first Generals loss in six weeks. Despite finishing 29 points behind their first-round opponent in the regular-season standings, it also sent a message that the Colts weren’t about to roll over.
Two days later the underdogs thought, rightly, that they’d sent Game 2 into overtime when Cole Beaudoin apparently bashed in a loose puck as time ticked down to tie the game at 5-5. But the goal was disallowed after a lengthy review, a process that was, frankly, questionable in how long it took and for its conclusion.
Soon after, the OHL announced changes to the video review process.
We hate to sound cynical, but it all gave off an odour. Like all good post-season competition, it is just one of a few subplots that have developed between Barrie and Oshawa over the past week.
Though Game 3 in Barrie on Tuesday night resulted in a comfortable 5-1 Oshawa win, the Colts had another goal called back, with the Generals having one of their own confirmed by video review. Combined with a few dubious penalty calls by refs who seemed enamoured by the sound of their whistles, the Colts deserved immense credit for bouncing back by playing their best game two nights later.
That effort fell 17 seconds short; that’s how much time remained when the Generals scored to tie the game — the Colts had been nursing a 3-1 lead heading into the final frame — and the visitors were the better team in overtime.
Beckett Sennecke, who was booted from Friday’s game for a check to the head, later scored in overtime on a beautiful tic-tac-toe passing play that was helped by the Colts being caught on a botched line change.
Though a fair argument could be made that the Colts should be the team leading the series right now, the Generals have done their part, too. They are a veteran club with no discernable weakness aside from a failure to solve Hillebrandt. Behemoth forward Dylan Roobroeck, along with Sennecke, Connor Lockhart, Calum Ritchie, Stuart Rolofs and Matthew Buckley, combined with former Colt Connor Punnett and Luca Marrelli at the back end, give the Generals a Memorial Cup-calibre lineup.
Punnett, by the way, has morphed into a cartoon villain three months after being traded for Thomas Stewart, who has been the Colts’ most reliable defenceman in the series.
A take-no-prisoners blueliner who recently signed with the Dallas Stars, Punnett and his team caught a break on Thursday night when his five-minute major for clobbering his friend and former teammate, Beau Jelsma, was taken off the board after a review.
The former Colts captain took out the current one with a hard body check that was delivered with a certain panache Barrie fans will remember fondly. Erasing the penalty was the correct call but added another layer of drama that continues to linger now that the Colts have forced Game 6.
The boos that faintly rained down on the Generals’ carrot-topped defender, who is rumoured to be nursing a rib injury, should grow louder on Sunday.
The Colts would be eliminated by now if not for the play of Hillebrandt. He posted a 47-save shutout on Friday night, including a number of key stops on a two-man advantage the Generals had in the third period while the game was still scoreless.
Colts defenceman Kashawn Aitcheson, on a beautiful setup by Bode Stewart and with Colts forward Zach Wigle stretching out along the blueline to keep the play onside, scored shortly after. That proved to be the winner, with the Colts adding two empty-net goals, first by Wigle and then Beaudoin to set up Sunday’s encounter.
Whatever takes place between now and Tuesday — that’s when Game 7, if necessary, will take place in Oshawa — the Colts have to feel good about how this series tees up next season.
Before any talk of the future, the Colts just want to keep their current season going as long as possible.
