Colts Crush the Spirit in Saginaw
A flurry of goals in the third period propelled the Colts to a 6-2 victory over the Spirit on Saturday night as they come out with four of a possible six points this weekend.
The Colts headed into the game in Saginaw with it being their third in three days, whereas the Spirit were playing their first of the weekend. You knew there were going to be some tired Barrie legs, but they wanted to make things a winning weekend after a 4-1 loss to Sarnia a night ago.
Barrie got off to a slow start allowing Sarnia to get on the board just over a minute in last night, but they were the ones who started things this night. It was their leading scorer Andrei Svechnikov who got things started with his seventh of the season. He grabbed the puck inside the Saginaw zone with lots of speed and weeved his way around the Spirit netminder Cameron Lamour to open the scoring. Lucas Chiodo and Alexey Lipanov picked up the tallies.
After going 0/17 on the powerplay the first two games of the weekend, you had to think Head Coach Dale Hawerchuk wanted to stress how important it is to get things going. Well whatever he may have said, worked early on. It was Svechnikov again who was the lucky recipient of a loose puck that came to him on his favourite wing. He made no mistake putting it into the wide open cage. Once again Chiodo and Lipanov recorded the asissts.
After playing nearly a perfect period Barrie took a late penalty to give the Spirit a chance with the man advantage. They had been 0/26 coming into the match, but that was broken on Marcu Crawfords shot from the point that got passed a screened Christian Propp to cut the lead in half.
After a great start to the second for Saginaw Propp was forced to make some big stops to keep the guys in front. That gave them the opportunity to make adjustments and get back on the board. Kirill Nizhnikov finished off a great passing play to give Barrie the two goal lead right back. Curtis Douglas fed him a cross crease pass and recorded the assist.
As mentioned earlier the Spirit had troubles on the powerplay but in the second, they got their second powerplay goal of the game. It was former Colt Matthew Kreis picking up the rebound and firing it passed Propp to cut the Barrie lead back to one.
In the third, Barrie would put the pressure on early. It was the fourth line giving them some insurance. Kyle Heitzner would grab the puck from behind the net and find a wide open Curtis Douglas who slid it into the open cage.
Moments later they would strike again. This time it was Zach Magwood who was set up perfectly in front of the Saginaw goal and he snapped it through the arm of Lamour to give the Colts their first three goal lead of the game.
Alexey Lipanov would add another one on the powerplay to give Barrie the 6-2 lead. Chiodo and Jason Willms would grab assists.
Barrie will look to continue their winning ways next week as they play host to last years OHL champions the Erie Otters at 7:30pm.
