Eyes on playoffs
The Ontario Hockey League first-round playoff picture came into focus for the Kingston Frontenacs before they even stepped onto the Hershey Centre ice on Sunday afternoon against the Mississauga Steelheads.
A 6-3 Mississauga loss to the Niagara IceDogs on Saturday afternoon ended the Steelheads’ chance to climb into sixth place and earn a date with the Fronts, and Mississauga and the Ottawa 67’s were left to fight it out on Sunday for seventh and eighth places.
Mississauga ultimately took seventh with a 3-1 win over the Frontenacs. The Steelheads will play the Barrie Colts while Ottawa gets the first-place Hamilton Bulldogs.
Sam Field scored the only Kingston goal.
With Jeremy Helvig getting a rest, Brendan Bonello got the goaltending start. He made 30 saves.
The Frontenacs also rested Linus Nyman, Emeli Rasanen and Liam Murray.
There was a scary moment in the first when Gabe Vilardi went down in a heap after blocking a shot. He went to the dressing room but did return in the second period for some shifts and again in the third before being shut down.
“More precautionary than anything. He could have played, but we got to the point where we said, ‘go in and get ready for next week.’ We took the option to rest,” Frontenacs head coach Jay Varady said.
In the final minute of play, Mississauga’s Mathieu Forget was assessed a blindsiding major and game misconduct for delivering an elbow to the head of Paul Larabie.
Varady said now the players have to prepare for a new season.
“Moving on, everybody is 0-0. That’s where our focus goes,” said Varady, whose team finished with 81 points (tied for the seventh most in a single season in franchise history spanning 45 seasons). “There were some good things, and a period of time when we could have been better. It’s done. We’ve got home-ice advantage and away we go.”
On Friday, two unanswered third-period goals by Cliff Pu and Vilardi broke a 3-3 tie to send the Frontenacs to victory before a crowd of 4,253 at the Rogers K-Rock Centre.
The Frontenacs also finished with the best home-ice record (22-6-5-3) in the Eastern Conference. That bodes well since third place is worth home-ice advantage for at least the first round of the playoffs.
“It’s not the ultimate one you want in the regular season, but it is something we talked about. It’s nice to achieve those goals,” said Varady, whose club was outdistanced for first place by 12 points by Hamilton.
Against the Battalion, Kingston’s big line supplied four goals: two by Pu and one each by Vilardi and Linus Nyman. Justin Pringle had the other goal.
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