Silver lining for midget Caps
Published Monday November 23rd, 2009
The Fredericton A.L. Gullison Disaster Kleenup Caps secured a silver medal for the second straight year in the minor midget division at the Monctonian AAA Hockey Challenge at the 4-Ice Centre.
In a showdown between 5-0 teams, the Charlottetown Abbies beat the Caps 4-1 in Sunday's championship game.
The Caps grabbed a 1-0 lead 5:46 into the game when Colin Moore slipped the puck past Kyle Craswell after taking a pass from Brett Gorman.
The game's turning point came late in the first period when Charlottetown captain Conor McAleer sent Cody MacRae in on a shorthanded breakaway and he deked Josh LeBrun to tie it at 17:25.
MacRae beat LeBrun with a 25-footer 1:43 into the second period, then completed his natural hat trick by banging in a rebound at 9:32. Two minutes later, McAleer poked home a loose puck to give Charlottetown a commanding 4-1 lead.
LeBrun stopped three breakaways in the third period, including two by MacRae, to prevent further damage but the Caps couldn't muster many good scoring chances and were outshot 39-20 overall.
The Abbies and Caps finished one-two among 24 teams -- 10 of which qualified for the playoffs.
McAleer had a goal and two assists and Kurt Willis posted the shutout as Charlottetown blanked P.E.I.-rival Mid-Isle Matrix 3-0 in one semifinal.
The Caps edged Nova Scotia's Bedford Blues 2-1 in the other semi as LeBrun won a goaltender's duel with Mitchell Donlevy. LeBrun made 24 saves and Donlevy stopped 31 shots.
Jesse Cole put the Caps ahead just 3:06 in, but Jordan Baltzer deflected Kris McKegney's point shot in to tie it at 6:42.
Matt Wright snapped in Justin McCarthy-Paul's pass 2:32 into the second and the Caps held on as LeBrun made several big stops, including a pad save off Cody Newton with 2:27 left in regulation.
The Caps downed Nova Scotia's Brookfield Elks 5-2 in Saturday's quarter-final contest. A sharp Matt Bailey stopped 22 of 24 shots to earn the win. Wright converted Ryan Cain's pass 3:39 into the game and Tanner Banks beat Brookfield goalie Brad Oosterom with a wrist shot 1:53 into the second, with assists going to Moore and Ben Budaker.
Jordan Wright cut the deficit to 2-1 with a five minutes left in the second, but Cole banged in his own rebound to put the Caps back up by two 68 seconds into the third. Wright and McCarthy-Paul assisted on the power play marker.
Ryan Blauuwendraat's power play goal with 4:41 left reduced the deficit to 3-2, but Cain slammed in Alex Lewicki's pass with 1:44 remaining and Gorman hit the empty net 42 seconds later to seal it.
The Caps, now 16-5-2 overall, also beat Brookfield 4-2 in the round robin, along with crushing the Cape Breton Northside Vikings 11-1 and downing P.E.I.'s Kings County Kings 5-2.
In the 20-team major midget portion of the 29th annual Monctonian, the St. John's Fog Devils routed the Charlottetown Islanders 8-2 in the gold medal game.
The Fredericton Darcy Simon Canadiens were eliminated in the first playoff round.
The Canadiens and New England Huskies were both 2-0 heading into the final round-robin game. The winner would place third overall while the loser would drop to eighth. The Huskies pulled it out late, winning 4-2 when Ole Setsaas cut to the net and beat Seamus Bowen with 2:10 left in the third period. Justin Portillo added an empty netter with 1.9 seconds left. Fredericton's Peter Trainor, assisted by Brett Barnhill, and Matt Rasimowicz traded first period power play goals.
Trainor and Paul Comeau set up Barnhill for the go-ahead goal 4:10 into the second, but Pat Trainer tied it five minutes later. The Canadiens had several chances to go up 3-2 but couldn't beat New England goalie Mark Hochmann again.
The loss relegated the Canadiens to a wild-card game against the Dartmouth Subways.
Barnhill scored twice in the first period, after being set up by Trainor and Comeau respectively, but Dartmouth rallied for a 5-2 win.
Luc Ramey and Mark Tremaine scored at 10:35 and 13:08 of the second to tie it 2-2, then Devon Oliver-Dares and Greg Jansz beat Zach Daigle 43 seconds apart to put Dartmouth up 4-2 with 6:13 to play.
Josh Desmond rounded out the scoring with 1:49 left.
The Canadiens defeated Cape Breton West Islanders 5-1 and Cornwall Thunder 3-2 earlier.
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