By: Mason Detre / Photo: Davide Disipio
Ottawa, Ontario – The Ottawa West Golden Knights (25-5-2) bounced back last night with a 7-1 victory over the Winchester Hawks (17-10-5) at the Barbara Ann Scott Arena. The Golden Knights also break Winchester’s three game winning streak.
The Golden Knights would score six unanswered goals from the start of the game until the third period, where Ottawa West allowed a goal from Danny Johnson, who undresses Silenu in the slot and deked out McEvoy for Winchester’s first goal in the third.
Most importantly, with under four minutes left in the third, Russell Jean-Pierre scored his first goal in CCHL Tier 2 to get the lead to 7-1. Jean-Pierre is always a defenseman, but tonight, had the opportunity to play on forward.
“The puck actually got chipped up the boards and I knew the defenseman was going to have a hard time controlling it. So I chipped it pass him, and then I gunned it. I knew I had space. I went straight down and I saw (Nicholai) Ponomarev on the right and a bit of the defenseman in front of me covering Ponomarev. So I faked the pass, and I ripped it five-hole as hard as I could,” said Russell Jean-Pierre.
Ottawa West Golden Knights Head Coach Steve Sundin was really pleased about Jean-Pierre, finally getting his first goal.
“It was fantastic and our bench errupted. Our General Manager (Craig Smith) hugged him on the way in. It was the seventh goal for us. The players love the guy, he works hard, never takes a shift off. If I sit him in the stands, he never complains. He’s just an all around him team player and I’m glad that we have him,” said Sundin.
Sean Kearns also extended his point streak to eight games by collecting one goal and two helpers for a three-point game. During his eight game point streak, Kearns has five goals and 13 assists.
“Sean is a smart hockey player. The shorthanded goal, pretty well barried them. The goalie (Cole Defazio) tried to play the puck behind the net and he stole it, to put it into the empty net,” said Sundin.
Steve Sundin also mentions that there wasn’t a player on the Golden Knights that had a a bad performance in this game. Sam Brown, Ric Shin, Nicholai Ponomarev and Jack Haymes were on the score sheet by collecting two points.
“The guys responded very well. The Winchester Hawks is a good hockey club, they got some really good players like Johnson, Kuehni and other good players,” said Sundin. “I thought defensively, we played very well. First period, we spent most of it on the Hawks end. Although we didn’t score a ton of goals, but it was a well rounded effort from everybody.”
William McEvoy makes 22 saves for his 14th win this season. It extends his winning streak to 11 games when McEvoy starts in net. It’s also the third consecutive game that McEvoy faced 23 shots. The Golden Knights power play was 2-for-3 while the penalty kill was perfect at 5-for-5 throughout the game.
Next game goes tonight at the Embrun Arena when the Golden Knights take on the Embrun Panthers. The Golden Knights loss 5-1 last week against Embrun on Thursday January 16th and it will be the last time these teams meet this season. If you can’t make it out to tonight’s game. You can catch the game on mixlr.com/owgkradio. Puck drop is scheduled for 8:00pm.
