Perry’s First Win Helps Keep Fronts Alive

The Kingston Frontenacs are still berating after a thrilling 7-4 victory on Tuesday night before an energetic K-Rock Centre crowd, to pull off their first win of the series and force a fifth game back in Oshawa on Friday night. Kingston native Nathan Perry was terrific in goal for the Fronts, earning first star honours, as he turned aside 34 saves on the night, while the longest serving Kingston player of all time Nathan Moon did his part to extend the season, scoring three goals, including the game winner. “Nathan was great in there for us tonight. He just keeps battling in there, he doesn’t let a bad goal keep him down, he just moves on to trying to make the next save,” said Head Coach Doug Gilmour. “Our guys really competed hard tonight and showed that they don’t want to go out like this and that they are ready to try as hard as they can to get back in this series,” said Gilmour.

Mitch Lebar opened the scoring with a beautiful goal, as he took a pass from Ethan Werek and made a nifty move to deke Peter DiSalvo in the Oshawa goal to give the Fronts the early lead midway through the period. Sean Jones, after a slow start to the playoffs scored his second goal in as many games, kicking the puck up to his stick on a goal mouth scramble and jamming it in to give the Fronts a 2-0 lead 33 seconds later.

Kingston carried the 2-0 lead into the second period and with a little confidence behind them, they came out guns blazing to start the second. MIchael Fine got credit for a deflection in front of DiSalvo just over a minute into the period and then Moon jumped all over a rebound in front to score his first of the night less than a minute later to give Kingston a 4-0 lead. Moon’s second of the night on a power play completely undressed DiSalvo and while attempting to reach back for the puck DiSalvo injured his arm or shoulder on the play and was forced to leave the game. He went to bench for a couple minutes, before heading to the dressing room for the remainder of the night.

Earlier in the period, the Gens sprung Scott Laughton on a clean breakaway that Perry was able to turn aside with a nice pad save. The Gens finally got through to Perry midway through the period when Boone Jenner fired a shot from an odd angle that beat Perry over his shoulder on the short side, but the Kingston native rebounded minutes later and stopped Christian Thomas on a breakaway less than three minutes later, but Thomas was awarded a penalty shot in the process. So 54 goal scorer and 99 point man in the regular season, one of, if not the deadliest shooter in the OHL was to go one on one with Nathan Perry, who two weeks ago was tending goal for the Amherstview Jets. Perry gave it his all and gutsy effort, but the smooth hands of Thomas were too much, as he fired a shot to the top corner to cut the Fronts lead to 5-2.

Things could have got very interesting and nerve wracking less than two minutes later as the Generals stormed in on a three on two rush, led by Andy Andreoff. Andreoff made a nice fake to cause Erik Gudbranson to drop down and slide to try and break up the play, but Andreoff eluded the big Fronts blue-liner, then faked around Perry and with Perry completely out of position, slid the puck back across the net to a wide open cage and what was sure to be a third Oshawa goal, but out of nowhere, Gudbranson returned to slide and save the puck from going across the line. The play didn’t end there though, as Gudbranson slipped the puck through his legs, the puck then squirted out of the Fronts zone and they broke down on an odd man rush of their own with Ryan Spooner firing home a beautiful goal to give the Fronts a 6-2 lead.

Midway through the second period, Generals defenseman Daniel Maggio stepped up and hammered Charles Sarault with a vicious hit to the head that knocked the third year Fronts forward to the ice and setup Derek Froats for a great chance in the process. There was no penalty on the play and Sarault was not injured, but it will be interesting to see if the OHL reviews the hit, as Oshawa was already without defenseman Scott Valentine for this game and a suspension to Maggio would leave the Generals minus two of their top four defenseman.

Oshawa super pest Emerson Clark was also up to his old tricks, as he jumped Nathn Moon seconds after the Spooner goal made it 6-2 and began fighting an unwilling Moon. Clark was given a five minute major for fighting, two minutes for instigating and a 10 minute misconduct and never saw the ice following the fight. Michal Big Mike Cajkovsky stepped in and tried to break things up, seeing that Moon was taking punches and was unwilling to throw any back and with nothing being done about it, the big Slovakian defenseman tried to break things up and was ejected and given a game misconduct for his troubles.

Lucas Lession scored on the power play midway through the third period, but Moon completed the hat-trick with a short-handed marker, as made a nice toe drag around a Generals defenseman and put shot off Kevin Baillie, that went up in the air and came down hitting Bailie in the arm and going in the net. Calvin De Haan scored a later power play marker, but the game was already decided at that point, as the Fronts pull off a big 7-4 win and keep the series alive.

Game Five is Friday night in Oshawa at 7:30PM and if necessary the Fronts will host Game Six on Sunday afternoon from the K-Rock Centre.