Cobourg Cougars captain Tucker Firth accepts the East Division champion banner following Wednesday night’s overtime win in Minden. (Twitter photo by: Spencer Smye/OJHL Images)
By Jeff Gard/Today’s Northumberland
The Cobourg Cougars are heading to the Ontario Junior Hockey League’s conference finals.
Andy Reist scored 12:40 into overtime to give the Cougars a 4-3 win over the Haliburton County Huskies in the third-and-deciding game of the East Division final Wednesday night in Minden.
“Everyone was working hard. I felt like we had the momentum in that overtime and there was just a faceoff in the o-zone, I got the puck off the wall and just shot it as hard as I could and lucky enough it went in, but everyone played an unreal game,” Reist said. “Our goalie, Justin Easter, was so steady in net and he’s been like that all year. It was just a great game by everyone.”
The Cougars had to put Monday’s 2-1 overtime loss, played in front of more than 1,500 spectators at the Cobourg Community Centre, behind them and refocus fast for Wednesday’s Game 3.
“It was obviously disappointing not getting the job done on Monday, but we came back and knew what we had to do tonight and in the end we got the job done,” Reist said. “Going into overtime, everyone was confident, there were no nerves. Everyone just contributed and it was a great finish.”
Cobourg erased a two-goal deficit in the third period to give themselves a chance.
Trailing 3-1 early in the third after Sam Solarino scored for the Huskies on a penalty shot, Caleb Thompson cut the deficit to one at the 5:22 mark of the final frame and Michael Palandra knotted the score at three at 15:10.
“It was a great comeback, very proud of how our guys stayed committed to it,” said Cougars head coach Wes Wolfe. “For us, we scored four goals and again each one of our four lines contributed. It was our fourth line – Andy Reist, Parker Hendsbee and Jakob Moirier – who got the goal for us there in overtime so it was great to see that team commitment from top to bottom sticking with it right through to the end.”
Jacob Gilbert opened the scoring for the Cougars midway through the first period before Patrick Saini promptly responded for the Huskies just 14 seconds later.
Haliburton’s Payton Schaly scored the lone goal of the second period near the six-minute mark on a breakaway after receiving a long pass from Lucas Stevenson down the middle of the ice.
Wolfe considered the first period to be the Cougars worst of the series.
“Obviously we had a lot of room to improve our game and I thought the second period we came out and even though we were down 2-1 after two, I thought the second was a really good period for us,” Wolfe said. “We were in their end a lot of the time. In fact our best shift of the game to that point was the one where they scored the go-ahead goal.
“We continuously talked about not letting our highs be too high or our lows get too low. We knew going into the third period that regardless of whether they were going to get one or we were going to tie it up that it’s a 60-minute game for a reason and we really fought hard through that period when we went down two. Our guys just stuck with it, continued to remain positive on the bench and we chipped away at it and ultimately led to tying it up and winning in overtime.”
As one of the OJHL’s final four teams, the Cougars will now face the Toronto Jr. Canadiens in the South-East Conference final. The Jr. Canadiens were the top team during the regular season.
The Pickering Panthers and Milton Menace will square off in the North-West Conference final.
Both series are best-of-five with the winners advancing to the Buckland Cup championship, which will be a traditional best-of-seven series.
