Another OT Marathon Loss Ends the Jr. Trappers Season

Jr. Wolves goaltender Chris Kaye makes one of his 70 saves on Mike Bodley of the Jr. Trappers. Photo by Matt Gordon.

In what was arguably their best played game of the season the North Bay Jr. Trappers fell 4-3 in triple overtime to the Sudbury Jr. Wolves, ending their playoff run in game 5 of the opening round series. Trapper killer Evan Daciuk wired home a one timer from the point on a power play to send the visitors to the Eastern division final.

This was the third time in the series that the teams needed extra time to decide a winner. As was the case for the entire series, the Wolves won on the back of some excellent goaltending by Chris Kaye and timely scoring by Daciuk who had 9 goals in the series.

“He’s a guy who was snake bitten most of the season because he just refused to shoot the puck,” noted Wolves head coach Dave Clancy of Daciuk. “Now he’s just firing the puck and (they) are going in the net; he’s the guy on fire, we’re going to keep feeding him the puck and hopefully good results come,” added the bench boss.

The loss was extra hard for the Trappers to take, not only did it end their season but they carried the play for the majority of the game. The team was already playing without forwards Justin Dicks, Dan Zawacki and Jon Aubertin, all of whom are out with injuries. To make matters worse, veteran forward Dan Frawley was thrown out the game on controversial call just as regulation time was about to end.

“I feel we deserved to win; some stuff was taken away from our guys and I thought it was wrong,” noted Trappers head coach Ian Swalucynski. “Frawley got a 5 minute major for spearing and he wasn’t even on the ice,” said the obviously upset coach.

Swalucynski said that he let referee Cory Siermachesky exactly what he thought of the call.

“I told him he could apologize to Frawley if we lost for ruining his Junior career.”

Tyler Arps and Daciuk gave the Wolves a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes, giving the Wolves the last 14 consecutive goals going back to the third period of game 3.

North Bay forward Mike Bodley finally broke the shutout streak midway through the second period and Brodie Barron evened the score 5 minutes later.

Daciuk gave the Wolves the lead again on a power play goal in the final minute of the second period. Mat Pepin scored the equalizer midway through the third period to set the stage for overtime.

In overtime, Kaye simply took over, stopping all 23 shots he faced in extra time and leaving several players shaking their heads.

“He’s really come on strong, he’s focused and he’s holding us in hockey games,” said Clancy of his backstop’s performance in the playoffs so far.

“I’ve just been trying to mentally prepare a bit more and get more into it,” said Kaye of how he’s been able to step up his game in the playoffs.

Kaye said it’s impossible not to be nervous in a game like this because the stakes are so obvious and so high.

“You know if you win, the series is done and you’re going to the next round,” said the backstop. “But you try to get around that and not show it,” added Kaye.

The Trappers poured on the pressure throughout overtime and despite rotating through only 8 forwards and 4 defensemen, the players never gave up.

“They left everything out there, they didn’t hold anything back,” boated Swalucynski. “I tell you what these kids laid it on the line tonight, I am proud of them.”

The Trappers best chance to end the game came in the first overtime when Bodley got the puck behind the Sudbury net and in a Doug Gilmour like move, faked like he was going around one way and came back around to the opposite post. If not for a desperation poke check by a Sudbury defenseman, Bodley would have easily tucked in the game winner.

Daciuk’s winner was set up when Bodley was called for holding 7 minutes into third overtime. Just 11 seconds later, Chris Kangas feathered a pass to the point and Daciuk fired a laser beam to the top corner to beat North Bay goaltender Michael Mitchell.

Mitchell, who was returning from a knee injury did look a little rusty early on, but definitely did his part making 34 saves including several game savers in OT.

The Wolves now move on to face the winner of the Abitibi, Temiscaming series. The Eskimos took a 3-1 lead in that series after a pair of weekend blowout wins.

For the Jr. Trappers, they now look to next year where there is some promise as many players are able to return to the team.

“We just wouldn’t go away,” said Swalucynski of his team’s season. “These kids like Sacha (Guimond), who is going to be unbelievable, with Aubertin and Zawacki we’ve got some special players in there,” added the coach of the prospects for next year.

For Swalucynski, he said he would love to return and coach again next season but that he also wanted to look at some options that have come up in the OHL.