RECAP | OTTAWA WEST 5, CHAR-LAN 3 – January 30th 2018
The Ottawa West Golden Knights came out on top with a 5-3 victory over the Char-Lan Rebels in Williamstown in a tight hockey game that came down to the third period.
The Knights were tied 1-1 after one and 3-3 after two but ultimately defeated the Rebels in the third with goals from Scrivens and Mulvihill, as Ottawa West captured their 25th win of the season and most importantly moved within three points of the second place Ottawa Jr. Canadians.
Although the Knights wearing their road white jerseys with gold and black trim were evenly matched by the divisions third last placed team – they did come up with a big two points despite a large setback at the beginning of the game.
Ottawa West were late to the rink due to the bus being late at the Barbara Ann Scott arena, forcing the boys to get ready quick and on for a pushed back 8:30 start.
With Head Coach Steve Sundin unavailable to attend the game due to an illness, the Golden Knights had General Manger Craig “Jon Boy” Smith and assistant coaches Brendan Deavy and Luciano Pietrantonio step up in the veteran’s place.
“Steve (Sundin) is a huge presence” mentioned assistant coach, Pietrantonio. “It’s not often that he misses games so we’re hoping he gets better but we sure missed him tonight”.
Another big note coming into their contest against the Rebels was the fact that the Golden Knights were without two defenseman (Odam & MacKinnon) forcing the coaching staff to make the decision to put forwards Raphael Lecours and Tyren Boots on defense.
“You know what, it went a lot better than I thought it would” explained Pietrantonio. “Those two guys (Lecours & Boots) seem to play well regardless where you play them and I think that’s the most important part but they played excellent tonight”.
Luke Mulvihill opened the scoring early in the first period for the Golden Knights after he received a beautiful one timer pass from Lecours on the power-play, netting his first of two on the night.
Just two and a half minutes later, Char-Lan nodded things up at one after Duchene scored his fifth goal of the season and his 11th point since joining the Rebels. Ottawa West and Char-Lan were tied 1-1 after one frame.
With Ottawa starting off the hockey game slower than expected Luciano felt like, Chris Cuglietta kept them in the game, making a couple great stops.
“Among many other things I felt Cuglietta made some key stops for us in the first. They could have ran away with the score and we came out really flat but he was really good for us to start”.
In the second period, Ottawa received excellent productivity from their top scorers. Cameron Scrivens and Franco Gagnon gave West a 3-1 lead, both coming on the power-play with under ten minutes to play in the frame.
“I was a nice play by Franco Gagnon who chipped it past the defense and I had speed going down the wing so I was able to get around the defender and beat the goalie to the short post” said Cameron Scrivens on his first goal in four games.
Char-Lan then scored twice on two goals that were scored via a two-on-one which tied the game 3-3 going into the third period.
With game deadlocked at three in the third, Cameron Scrivens scored the go-ahead goal before Mulvihill would add an insurance marker towards the end of the third to take the game, 5-3 the final score.
The game’s first star, Cameron Scrivens scored two goals and was happy to get the monkey off his back “It’s defiantly tough when you’re going through a stretch where you’re not playing the way you want to play. I just try to stay positive and come out and play hard every game because I think the points will follow that”.
All night and especially in the third period, Scrivens left like the team played together as a team and passed the puck very well.
“I thought our puck movement was good all night but all around, all four lines were going but our productivity in the offensive zone produced and especially in the third when we needed it” added Scrivens.
With the subtraction of Tyren Boots to the “Scrivens and Franco line” – Matthew Bidin stepped in and did an excellent job “I thought we moved the puck well and we were doing a good job of breaking the puck out and getting a lot of offensive zone time, which was good too” said Scrivens.
Among other things other than the important two points, Luke Mulvihill scored two goals, Cameron Scrivens scored two goals, Franco Gagnon netted one goal and two helpers and Raphael Lecours had three assists from the backend.
The Golden Knights next contest is Thursday, Februarys 1st when they take on the Char-Lan Rebels at 7:15 inside the Barbara Ann Scott arena.
See full video of road trip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH76-mEOLD0
