Jonathon Brodie – Recorder & Times
Since the CCHL season started the Brockville Braves have played every Friday night, except for three of them. Two of those games were nixed because of weather and transportation issues. The other Friday was over the league-wide holiday hiatus.
This Friday the Braves didn’t suit up for a game for the fourth time in the last 29 weeks, but this time they earned it after beating the Kanata Lasers 4-2 on the road Thursday to sweep their first-round series.
Their coach, Jesse Winchester, is keeping his team off the ice until Sunday, but for now, on the Friday, the Braves didn’t have to worry about getting some added bruises from an opponent doing everything they could to keep their season alive like they would have if there was a Game 5 scheduled.
“To get this day off and not have to play is less miles put on the body and it might help us later in the second round,” said Winchester. “We’re fortunate to have closed it out and they’re rewarded with some time to just bond as a team and enjoy some R-and-R because we haven’t had a whole lot since the end of January.”
The four straight wins doesn’t show how close the series really was between the Braves and Lasers. Two of the series’ games going into overtime and each of them being within a goal in the third period is a more accurate display of how tight things really were.
“Kanata pushed us to our limit, honestly,” said Winchester. “I don’t know how it was a four gamer because the games were really close and they fought back in every game. We were just able to rally at the right time, get some timely scoring and a big save from (goalie Justin) Evenson and here we are.”
The quarter-final was close, but a lot went right for the Braves to be able to break out the brooms.
Their power play was really the knockout blow. The Lasers by no means were playing dirty and averaged just four penalties a game in the series, but when they did get sent to the sin bin the Braves made them pay for it.
Kanata scored 12 goals in the four games. Brockville picked up eight on their power play alone and the goals always seemed to come in big moments.
The game-winners in Games 1 and 4 were on the man-advantage. In Game 3 the power play scored twice in the second period, each goal bringing the Braves back to even with the Lasers on the scoreboard.
“What’s most encouraging to me (about our power play) is where we’re scoring the goals from – right on top of the crease. We worked on schemes for the last month on how to do it properly,” said Winchester. “It’s timely goals, important goals, and goals played the right way and they meant a lot, obviously.”
The series win was a collective effort by Brockville.
Everywhere on the stat sheet numbers pop out and provide reasons why the Braves won. Nine players had three points or more, from Jonathan Hill steamrolling with eight points to Simon Kerr quietly picking up three assists. Eight different Brockville players scored a goal, ranging from the reliable Eric Holland getting four to Zac McMahon, who had just four the entire regular season, finding the back of the net. Ten players found their names attached to Brockville’s’ four game-winners.
The things that don’t get tallied up – like Michael Locatelli’s big hits, Eric Faith’s back-checking, Fred Allaire grinding in the corners, Nicholas Hawkins blocking shots, etc. – mattered just as much as any of the stats.
“We have a real team and we take pride in that and we believe in each other,” said Winchester. “We talked about that in all of our meetings, the need for everybody to take on a leadership role if we want to go far.”
Justin Evenson played big as well. The rookie netminder has stood on his head pretty much all year, so when he continues to play at that pace it’s easy to forget that what he’s doing is playing well above the norm. Evenson finished the series with a .930 save percentage – the same as his regular season total – and made 44 saves in Game 1 and 50 in Game 3.
“He just comes to expect it now,” said Winchester. “Even when he lets in a goal there’s no panic there because he’s able to refocus and move on from it. He’s a real stabilizing force for us back there.”
The Braves now have to wait to see who their opponent will be in the CCHL semifinal. The betting money would be that they’ll play the Ottawa Jr. Senators next with the No. 2 ranked team leading the Pembroke Lumber Kings 3-2 in their quarter-final.
The Braves aren’t thinking about that right now, though. For now they’ll just soak in a free Friday night.
“I’m not going to really think about it too much. I’m going to take a couple of days and I hope my guys are too just to come back refreshed,” said Winchester. “We have video on all the teams and we know how they play. I don’t need five days to prepare. If our series (against Kanata) went seven games we would have jumped in the very next day and played the next team, so we’re just going to take it day-by-day, prepare as it comes, and keep whatever is in front of us in front of us, and have some fun.”
Original Story at Recorder.ca
