“Obviously huge for our program and especially the guys who have been here for a few years”
Don’t take a penalty against the Gee-Gees. That’s what other teams in the OUA should take away after the Gee’s Game Two win and series sweep over the Ontario Tech Ridgebacks.
The Gees welcomed the Ridgebacks to the Minto Sports Complex for a Saturday evening game, which would turn out to be the last of the Ridgeback’s season. The Gee-Gees used a piping hot power-play to put eight goals in the back of the visitor’s net; meanwhile, Franky Lapenna stood tall in their own, earning a shutout.
The Ridgebacks’ penalties began early in the match. Just over halfway through the first period, OTU defender Evan White took down Gees leading scorer Luka Verreault as the forward blazed by him on route to the net, earning the former Rimouski Oceanic star a penalty shot.
The forward came in slowly on Ridgebacks goaltender William Desmarais and used a move from Nick Suzuki’s book of tricks to fool the former Ottawa Jr. Senator.
While there wasn’t as much extra-curricular activities after the whistle as there was in Game One, a scrum occurred just a few minutes later, leading to coincidental penalties for Gees defenceman Adam Sandstrom and Ontario Tech defenceman Jeremy Michaud. Sandstrom would leave the game later in the period to injury, leaving the Gees with five defenders for the rest of the game.
Late in the period, after Gees captain Anthony Poulin crashed the Ridgebacks net, a similar scrum occurred. This time, Poulin would get an extra penalty in addition to the coincidentals, sending the Ridgebacks to their first powerplay. Lapenna and the Gees would weather the storm and kill the penalty.
The Ridgebacks would take a sloppy high-sticking penalty just six seconds into the second frame. And with Poulin still in the box, forward Nick Bowman took his captain’s place in the middle on what Gee-Gees colour commentator Bryanna Neuwald describes as a “five on a die” power-play setup.
Working from top-to-bottom on the man advantage, Bradley Chenier fed it to Charles-Antoine Roy, who one-touched it to Bowman in the slot, who then one-timed it home over the left pad of Desmarais, making it 2-0 Gees.
Poulin would be high-sticked just over a dozen seconds after the goal, leading to another Gee-Gees power-play. This time, Poulin would find Stratis at the top of the right circle with a perfect pass from the goal-line and the right-handed Stratis would one-time it home, just under the crossbar.
Immediately after the goal, the fire alarm would go off in Minto. Both teams would be forced to leave the ice, and the delay lasted over 25 minutes. Lapenna talked about staying focused during the strange delay postgame. “Weird things happen sometimes,” the Laval native said. “Credit to our guys for staying focused and ready to play.”
The delay worked to slow the momentum the Gees gained from the two quick goals, and the rest of the period saw scoring chances evenly distributed for both sides. But with just over two minutes remaining in the middle frame, the Ridgebacks would be penalized once again.
Chenier was caught with an errant knee from Michaud while entering the Ridgebacks zone, which led to another scrum — this time in the corner. During the commotion, OTU defenceman Marko Jakovljevic would somehow be given an extra penalty, after the ref deemed his actions on Aaron Brown were out of line.
The decision to call a roughing penalty on Jakovljevic was bewildering, and the defenceman certainly voiced his displeasure as he made his way to the box, but the referees had already set a precedent that they wouldn’t simply take both when they penalized Poulin earlier in the game.
Furthermore, if Michaud was called for his errant knee at the beginning of the sequence, the entanglement wouldn’t have happened in the first place, and the Ridgebacks would be left in the same position — on another penalty kill.
But even still, it’s safe to assume part of the reason why Jakovljevic was so upset was simply because the red-hot Gee-Gees power-play would be put back to work. And if that was running through his mind, his intuition was right.
This time, Gees forward Mathieu Desgagnes would be gift-wrapped a rebound to Desmarais’s left, and he would bury it into the open cage. The goal made the Gees a perfect 3-for-3 on power-plays, while additionally having capitalized on their penalty shot chance.
It’s easy to blame officiating while being down 4-0 in an elimination playoff game without allowing an even-strength goal, but all the Gees’ power-plays were earned, even if one of the calls may not have been correct.
Head coach Patrick Grandmaître talked about the team’s power-play preparation postgame. “It’s something that we work on consistently,” said the veteran coach. He explained that the first unit, with Luka Verreault had been performing well, but in this game, the goals were all from the second unit.
“It was nice to get our second unit here, which is [made up of] a lot of veteran guys. They clicked on the powerplay for all three goals. You wish every game you’d have this kind of success on the powerplay,” Grandmaître joked. “But no, it’s good. It came at a great time and hopefully it kind of sets us up for the next round.
When asked about Ontario Tech’s struggling penalty kill, Grandmaître confirmed the coaching staff took it into account in their strategizing. “We study every phase of the game when we’re facing an opponent,” said the Hull native.
“We try to find what are their strengths, but also what their weaknesses are, and you try to take advantage of those. I think we did, we did our homework, and it worked out.”
Verreault would get the team’s first even-strength goal two minutes into the third period, when Roy sent a cross-ice pass to Chenier, who then found the Gees leading points-getter backdoor for a tap-in. He would finish with two goals and two assists.
The Gee-Gees would seal the shutout for Lapenna, who made 23 saves in total. On the other end, Desmarais was pulled after the Gee’s sixth goal for backup Alexis Giroux. Grandmaître agreed that closing out the blowout win with the shutout intact became the teams focus late in the game.
“As you get into the third period, and you feel like you’re ahead of the score quite a bit, I think the focus was shifted to keeping a shutout for [Lapenna]. I mean, he’s saved us a lot, a couple games this year, so it was really important for us to clamp it down for him to get the shutout.”
Lapenna touched on what the series win meant to the team postgame. “It was a lot of fun!” the first-year Gee said. “[It’s] obviously huge for our program, and especially the guys who have been here for a few years to move on to the next round. The feeling is good, but we’re not satisfied and have a lot more work to do.”
The star netminder, who led the OUA in both goals against average and save percentage in the regular season and now leads in the postseason, also talked about his first season in U SPORTS, saying he was proud of both himself and the team.
“We have a great group of guys and staff, an extremely close group. My expectations coming in were simply to put in the work, day in and day out, and do my best to give our team a chance to win. The ride’s been great and has been one of the most fun hockey seasons I’ve ever had, for sure. I’m definitely grateful to be here.”
The Gees will be the underdog in their next series, where they take on the OUA defending champions, the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières Patriotes. The series begins in Trois-Rivières on Feb. 21, and Game Two goes Feb. 23 at Minto.
“We are looking forward to going head-to-head with [UQTR],” the goalie finished with. “It is a great opportunity for us.” Grandmaître was also asked about the team’s mindset heading into the second round. “UQTR is a totally different team than Ontario Tech,” said the coach.
“We obviously know that it’s going to be really hard. Not only are they a good team, they won the Queen’s Cup two years in a row. They have some veteran guys that have been through this. We kind of knew that to get somewhere in the playoffs this year, we’re going to have to beat some really good teams.”
