Rough sledding for midget Habs
Published Monday November 2nd, 2009
Judging by the N.B.-P.E.I. Midget AAA Hockey League standings, Sunday's game between the Saint John Vito's and the Fredericton Darcy Simon Canadiens should have been a mismatch.
It was anything but.
The Canadiens outshot the Vito's 45-24, but lost 4-2 before 200 fans at Willie O'Ree Place.
Saint John raises its record to 7-0 while Fredericton falls to 2-7.
But the Canadiens, who trailed the Charlottetown Islanders 7-1 after two periods Saturday and wound up losing 7-4, responded with a determined effort against the heavily favoured Vito's.
Saint John goaltender Kyle Cameron was up to the task, though, especially when his team was outshot 13-3 in the first period and 20-6 in the third.
"It's frustrating, but it's early in the season still, so it's a work in progress," said Alex Murray, who broke Cameron's shutout bid on the Canadiens' 28th shot. "Their goalie was good, but if we keep pounding away we're bound to get some bounces before long. There's no magic solution to get us out of this slump. We practise three times a week. If we keep working hard, it will come eventually."
"I was comfortable in the net. It was probably the biggest game I've played ever since I started playing hockey," said Cameron, who played for the Kennebecasis Valley High Crusaders last season.
"I faced a lot of these guys in peewee and bantam AAA, but it's taking a little time to get used to the speed of midget AAA."
"Kyle is doing a great job," Saint John head coach Jeff LeBlanc said. "The Canadiens are always tough at home - really, they're always tough to play anywhere - and today was no exception. We allowed a lot of shots in the third period. We're not too pleased about that, but we're 7-0 and feeling pretty good."
Fredericton head coach Kevin Pottle isn't feeling so swell.
"I couldn't complain about the effort over 60 minutes," Pottle said. "It's those four or five individual shifts, or moments in the game, that become the difference between winning and losing."
Dylan Jones, Sam Maguire and Scott Fenwick all scored their third goals of the young season for the Vito's while defenceman Cody Kennedy added his first, a perfectly placed wrist shot at 12:04 of the third period, just 49 seconds after Anthony Dion had cut the deficit to 3-2.
Alex Murray, on the power play, finally solved Cameron 4:15 into the third after Riley Dickie was denied on a wraparound attempt.
Dickie, Fredericton's top pointgetter, was drilled from behind less than three minutes later by Chris McGraw and was helped off the ice in a fog. But referee Frank Sauve only gave McGraw a minor, instead of a major, which drew howls of protest from the Habs' bench.
Dion roofed Zack Foster's rebound at 11:15, but the Canadiens collapsed defensively on the next shift and Kennedy took a pass from Aidan Kelly and slipped the puck past Zack Daigle, who had rebounded well after allowing a weak goal to Jones 3:09 into the game.
Maguire, on a nice individual effort, made it 2-0 3:29 into the second and Fenwick jammed in Kelly's rebound midway through the period to stake Saint John to a 3-0 lead.
In the end, though, Kennedy's goal was the turning point.
"Unless you're Alex Ovechkin in the slot, usually a good wrist shot beats a slapshot," LeBlanc said. "Cody deserves credit for that shot."
"When you've got to have a really big shift," Pottle said, "we didn't. Give them credit, they called a timeout and came right back (to make it 4-2). Our guys have to step up in that situation."
The Vito's were coming off a 3-1 win over the Moncton Flyers the night before. Andrew Dolan, Mike Richard and Ryan Langan, into an empty net, scored in support of goalie Andrew Mergl, who stopped 38 of 39 shots.
Mergl and Cameron both have 2.00 goals against averages and almost identical splendid save percentages: Mergl .945 and Cameron .938.
"I've never been on a team where I've done this well before," said Cameron, who made two huge stops off hard-driving Brett Young in the second period and two more off Peter Trainor in the third.
"This is a great team, everyone gets along. I love the atmosphere in the dressing room."
In Saturday's game, Jordan McInnis scored a natural hat trick and added an assist to lead the visiting Islanders. Jeremy Balderston helped out with two goals and an assist while Brandon Weir had a goal and two assists. Harrison Wood had one of each.
Phil Fife, Brett Barnhill, Young and Murray countered for the Canadiens , who outshot Charlottetown 44-33 but had trouble beating Ryan Deagle. Seamus Bowen took the loss.
The Canadiens continue to play with a thin lineup. Defencemen Andrew Schriver (knee surgery), Craig Langille (hip flexor) and Brandon Connors (concussion) are out, and heart-and-soul forward Dylan DesMeules has knee ligament damage and is out "at least six-to-eight weeks," Pottle said.
"We have injuries," Pottle said, "but the guys we do have playing are coming. I see progress overall."
The Canadiens visit the Vito's on Saturday before hosting Moncton at 3 p.m. Sunday at Willie O'Ree Place.
In other weekend games, Moncton blanked Charlottetown 2-0 while the Miramichi Rivermen swept the Cornwall Thunder 4-2 and 5-4.
Miramichi (7-2-1) remains a point ahead of Saint John, but the Vito's have three games in hand.
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