By Jeff Gard/Today’s Northumberland
Down 2-0 in the best-of-five series and also 2-0 early in Game 3, the Cobourg Cougars were undeterred in keeping their Ontario Junior Hockey League playoff hopes alive Wednesday night in Toronto.
Cobourg trailed the host Jr. Canadiens three times, including the two-goal deficit in the first period, before ultimately pulling away to a 9-5 victory at the Scotiabank Pond.
Toronto still leads the South-East Conference final 2-1 heading into Game 4 on Friday night, 7 p.m., at the Cobourg Community Centre.
“This team has shown time and time again that they play hard for each other,” said Cougars head coach Wes Wolfe. “We spoke before the game that the series doesn’t really start until a team has got its back up against the wall and the last (win) is the hardest one to get.
“In the previous series when we were in the driver’s seat trying to get the win, now that we’re on the other side of it we want to be that team showing they don’t want their season to end. I thought tonight, despite those two early goals, we came out and responded in a big way. It was great to see the guys fight that hard and now we’re just going to prepare ourselves to do the exact same thing on Friday night.”
With the Cougars trailing by two in the opening frame Wednesday, four goals were scored in a span of 2:05 including three power-play tallies by Cobourg’s Jacob Gilbert, AJ Cook and Kallaway Mercer and one shorthanded marker by Toronto’s Kyan Haldenby, his first of two on the night as the score was knotted at three after 20 minutes of play.
In the second, the Jr. Canadiens took their third and final lead of the contest before Gilbert, with his second, and Andy Reist scored just over a minute apart to give the Cougars a one-goal advantage heading out of the middle frame.
Cobourg’s lead was bolstered to three less than a minute into the third period as Justin Jamer scored just 22 seconds in and Mercer notched his second at the 57-second mark.
A pair of empty-net goals from Charlie Da Fonseca, who had a five-point outing including four assists, and Cook’s second rounded out the scoring for the Cougars.
Wolfe said after Game 2 he was expecting more from his power-play and was pleased to see his club go 3-for-5 Wednesday night as a few slight changes to the units resulted in great execution, especially in that first period.
Friday night the Cougars will have an opportunity to send the series to a fifth-and-deciding contest Sunday in Toronto when they play at the Cobourg Community Centre in front of their fans that lead the OJHL in playoff attendance with an average of 1,201.
“Our crowd at the CCC has been so supportive of this team and we want to make sure we give our faithful crowd an entertaining game,” Wolfe said. “I’m confident that our team does not want to lose to the same team twice in our building. We’re going to continue to push forward Friday with the same desperation that we had tonight and hopefully the home crowd gets behind us and they can help us extend this one to a fifth game.”
COBOURG 9 TORONTO 5
1st period
TOR Liam Fedak (Zev Podolski, Eric Vitale) 4:21
TOR Cooper Bertand (Christian Catalano) 11:31 PP
COB Jacob Gilbert (AJ Cook) 15:34 PP
COB AJ Cook (Charlie Da Fonseca, Adam Barone) 16:39 PP
TOR Kyan Haldenby (unassisted) 17:11 SH
COB Kallaway Mercer (Da Fonseca) 17:39 PP
2nd period
TOR Matthew Wilde (Catalano) 6:28 PP
COB Gilbert 2 (Zach Smith) 8:51
COB Andy Reist (Da Fonseca, Justin Jamer) 9:54
3rd period
COB Justin Jamer (Michael Palandra, Da Fonseca) 0:22
COB Mercer 2 (Aaron Chiarot) 0:57
COB Charlie Da Fonseca (unassisted) 16:05 EN
TOR Haldenby (Karafile) 16:25
COB Cook 2 (Jacob Gilbert) 16:49 EN
