By Jeff Gard/Today’s Northumberland
After a wild third period in the opening game of their second straight best-of-three playoff series, the Cobourg Cougars and Haliburton County Huskies find themselves in familiar positions once again.
Cobourg, coming off a two-game sweep of the Wellington Dukes, remain undefeated and now lead the Huskies following a 5-3 win in Game 1 of the Ontario Junior Hockey League East Division final Sunday afternoon in Minden.
Six goals were scored in the final frame, including three in a span of 1:11 and four total by the Cougars.
Haliburton also lost their series opener against the Trenton Golden Hawks in the previous round before winning the next two games to advance in the Buckland Cup playoffs. The lone difference for the Huskies is holding home-ice advantage in this series should they force a third-and-deciding contest against the Cougars.
For now, just like against Wellington, a road win in the series opener sets up the Cougars for a chance to win the short series on home ice.
Game 2 is scheduled for Monday night with a 7 p.m. start at the Cobourg Community Centre. Last Monday’s contest against the Dukes drew nearly 1,100 spectators at the CCC.
“Today was a really hard-fought battle. It’s exactly what we expected,” said Cougars head coach Wes Wolfe. “They’re a very disciplined team in terms of how they play with and without the puck. They do have the experience from the previous round, they found themselves down one…you can tell that they’re playing for each other and they’re going to be a tough out so we just have to match the intensity and come back with the same attention to detail that we had today.”
It was the first win in Minden this season for the Cougars, which settled for a tie there in November, and both wins against Haliburton during the regular campaign were at home in Cobourg.
Oliver Tarr, who had 33 goals and 70 points for the Huskies during the regular season, opened the scoring Sunday with just 46 seconds left to play in the first period. It was the first goal allowed by Cougars goaltender Justin Easter since the third period of Game 1 against Wellington.
It was also the first time the Cougars had trailed during the OJHL postseason.
Cobourg had a four-minute power play early in the first period of Sunday’s game with Haliburton’s Christian Stevens in the penalty box serving a double-minor for head contact, but couldn’t find a way to solve netminder Christian Cicigoi.
During their third man-advantage opportunity of the contest, AJ Cook evened the score for the Cougars on the power play at 12:25 of the middle frame.
In the third, defenceman Devin Thibodeau scored the go-ahead goal for the Cougars at the 3:32 mark when his shot found its way through traffic. Teammate Zach Smith bolstered the lead to two 43 seconds later when he collected a rebound from an Adam Barone shot and had a wide open look at the net. George Krotiris also capitalized on a rebound when he scored 28 seconds after Smith’s goal to put the Cougars in front 4-1 before the period reached its fifth minute.
Patick Saini got one back for the Huskies on a power play at 7:15 and Payton Schaly cut the deficit to one at 9:10 and more than half a period to play before the end of regulation time.
Cougars captain Tucker Firth tallied a much-needed insurance goal with nine minutes left to play.
That third period emphasized the importance of momentum, but also how quickly things change in a game.
“They have a very electric crowd here who supports the team. We were able to quiet them early in the third period by jumping out to that lead, but it quickly can go away if you allow a team like that to gain some momentum themselves and they definitely feed off the crowd energy here,” Wolfe said. “It was a really big goal by our captain Tucker Firth to restore the two-goal lead and I thought from that point forward we really did a great job of doing what we needed to lock things down for the rest of the game.”
