RECAP | Ottawa West 7, Arnprior 1
The Ottawa West Golden Knights and Arnprior Packers met in a high scoring affair on Thursday night inside the Barbara Ann Scott arena, with West Ottawa picking up a much needed two points after a loss on Tuesday and two more games on tap this weekend.
It was the Golden Knights first victory that they won by four or more goals since a 6-2 win over Alexandria on November 30th.
Before the game, Head Coach Steve Sundin knew that Arnprior would be only dressing 13 skaters and wanted to take advantage of that by rolling all four lines.
“We just had to let everybody play and work hard because we play tomorrow night and we needed to use every body we could tonight”.
After two quick goals by the Golden Knights in the first 10 minutes of the game, you could tell that it was going to be a long hockey game for Arnprior. The Packers had no structure in their own end and ultimately had it backfire on them when they tried to break out the puck.
Justin Jamer, the game’s first star scored just one minute after the Knights second goal – giving Ottawa West a 3-0 lead before Bidin would add another one to push the lead to 4-0 after two periods.
The main story was the bounce back performance by Justin Jamer who already had a goal and an assist after one frame.
“I had a talk with Justin Jamer before the game and I told him that he needed to play the way he was playing before. He was first star tonight, he had a fabulous game” explained Sundin on his rookies performance.
Steve Sundin had a pre-game meeting with Jamer after a rough game on Tuesday and he thought that helped his game coming in.
“I wasn’t playing my game as well as I should have been and he talked to me and said that I should just keep it simple, get the puck deep” noted Justin Jamer after scoring his first goal since December 8th in Westport.
All of the Golden Knights first four goals were scored by their secondary scorers, which is something Steve Sundin spoke to the team about in the pre-game meeting.
“We got secondary scoring tonight and we got goals that we normally don’t get from guys” said Sundin. “That’s what I’m so excited about”.
The first period goals came from Brown, Wall, Jamer and Bidin which are four forwards that normally play on the second or third line.
“Well we all had to get the monkey off our back and for me it’s a great feeling to finally get the monkey off my back for sure” brightened Jamer.
In the second frame, Franco Gagnon made a beautiful around the defender near the right circle and fired his 23rd into the back of the net for an Ottawa West 5-0 lead heading into the final period.
After the Packers Ty Power split the Golden Knights defense and passed it to Johnson for the only goal of the game, Adam Goodfellow also scored a highlight real goal to extend the lead to 6-1. With no room, he cut to the outside of the Arnprior zone and quickly shot it over the shoulder of Rukavina for his 7th of the season.
“I wasn’t even looking where I was shooting and I’ve had four goals this year that came from the high slot so I think I’ll start hanging out there a lot more often” mentioned Goodfellow following his great game.
Mulvihill would add another one for Ottawa West as they took the high scoring game, 7-1. Cameron Iob made 31 saves for his first 30 plus save performance since November 1st.
“I thought he played a solid game tonight’ beamed Sundin. “Arnprior scored a nice goal but when you only allow one goal on 30 plus shots it’s pretty good and I was pleased with his play”.
The Golden Knights also outshot the Packers 51-32 in the win. They are have the third most shots for in the CCHL2 which has been a plus all season.
Ottawa West is back in action tonight at 8pm in Renfrew. Cameron Iob is expected to make the start for the Golden Knights in his hometown.
