File Photo courtesy McLeodsGlass
The Braves had an unfortunate start at the Fred Barrett Arena last night, Antoine Gauthier gave the home side an early lead at 1:35 with a shot that was slightly misjudged by Sami Molu. He responded admirably though and made a number of key saves throughout the rest of the frame. Nate Burelle got the Braves even again with his third of the playoffs, a laser shot off of a Powers faceoff win to the right of Applebee at 8:26. The Braves fed off the energy from the goal and put the pressure on the Jr. Sens for the rest of the first, banging and crashing and drawing penalties. Nick Foster had a great chance on a late powerplay but struck iron.
The second started with more great CCHL action between two evenly matched teams, it was a specialty teams affair with seven penalties in the second half of the period. Applebee was caught out of position early but one of his defenders blocked the open net opportunity. Markus Grajnar Ptok had a great shorthanded breakaway late in the period but to no avail, the teams remained knotted at one after forty.
Your Braves got the short end of a powerplay scramble in front of the net as Wil Murphy managed to knock the third attempt in 25 seconds into the final period. The bad luck continued two minutes later as Barnard got tied up with the linesman off a draw to Molu’s right and Mickael Hebert got a shot off through traffic for Ottawa’s third of the game. The rest of the third was back and forth action and mostly penalty free. The Braves had a number of close calls, Burelle went cross crease behind the netminder just missing the far post. With Sami pulled Applebee tried for the goalie goal but almost banked it into his own net off one of the Braves. There was only one penalty in the period before the 19:37 mark when hostilities broke out in front of the Braves bench, Foster went off for cross-checking while Carolan, Yarde and Ottawa’s Hebert and Velocci all for roughing. Staresinic also took a roughing penalty for Ottawa at the buzzer.
Brockville outshot the Jr. Sens 34-29 but went 0-7 on the PP while Ottawa went 1-4. Three stars were 1. Wil Murphy – OJS (1-0-1), 2. Mickael Hebert – OJS (1-0-1), 3. Nate Burelle – BRO (1-0-1)
The Braves will go back to work and do #WhateverItTakes for Brockville in Game 4 tonight at the #Madhouse.
CCHL gametime is 7:30
