Frontenacs Rally for a Point
A three-goal, third-period comeback earned the Kingston Frontenacs a point on Friday night in Saginaw, Mich.
The Spirit came back in overtime to get the extra point with Vincent Trocheck scoring at 4:39 while Saginaw was up a man.
Trocheck’s second goal of the game lifted the Spirit (6-9) to a 6-5 overtime win over Kingston (2-10-2-1) before 2,716 fans at the Dow Event Centre.
“If we played the first two periods like the third, we would have won the game,” coach Todd Gill said.
“It’s very disappointing. The compete level wasn’t there at the start. There’s no excuse. We have to learn from that.”
Gill replaced goalie Igor Bobkov after two periods, bringing in Blake Richard. Gill said it wasn’t because Bobkov was playing poorly. He did it to give him a rest and plans to come back with Bobkov against the Plymouth Whalers in the road-trip closer on Saturday night (7:05, 88.7 FM).
“We put Richie in and it seemed to spark us a bit,” said Gill, who felt the penalty call on Jeff Braithwaite in overtime was a weak call.
The Frontenacs almost won it before that on a 2-on-1 rush with Ryan Spooner and Tyler Brown. The puck bounced on the set-up pass from Spooner to Brown.
“We have to pull the good out of the bad. The bad was our compete level wasn’t good enough for the first two periods,” Gill said.
“We got back to competing the way we can, the way we did in Windsor (in a 6-2 win on Thursday night) and we came back to tie the game. We have to learn from that.”
Cody Alcock scored two goals 43 seconds apart to key the Kingston comeback. Derek Froats set up the overtime with the game-tying goal at 15:32.
Richard made 11 saves, two in overtime.
Trevor Morbeck and Michael Moffat also scored for the Frontenacs.
Brandon Saad, on a tear since the Chicago Blackhawks returned their prized prospect to junior, scored a goal and added two assists for the Spirit.
It was Saad’s short-handed goal late in the second period that put Saginaw up by three going into the third period.
Saginaw led 3-1 after the first and 5-2 after 40 minutes.
Morbeck, in his second game for his new team, also assisted on defenceman Moffat’s goal.
Garret Ross scored twice in the first period, helping the Spirit go into the second ahead 3-1.
Ross scored the game’s first two goals before Morbeck, on a set-up by Alcock, cut the deficit for Kingston.
However, Anthony Camara scored at 19:13 to restore Saginaw’s two-goal lead.
Ross had a busy first period. Besides his two goals, he also was in a fight with Froats.
The player setting up Ross was Saad, who has 17 points in seven games since coming back from the NHL. He is the most recent winner of OHL player of the week honours.
Saginaw held a significant edge in play in the opening period, outshooting the Frontenacs, 20-6.
