Lakers fall short versus Gee Gee's; face McGill in opening round

Guillaume Donovan and Luc-Olivier Blain scored power play goals less than 2 minutes apart in the 3rd period as the Ottawa Gee-Gee's put an end to a disappointing weekend for the Nipissing Lakers in a 3-2 Ottawa win.

Grant Toulmin and Dorian Peca scored for the Lakers who finish 6th in the OUA East and will face the McGill Redmen in best-of-three OUA East Division quarter-final which opens here on Wednesday night at 7 pm.

Toulmin evened the score 1-1 in the middle frame; his 12 goal of the season.

But it was Toulmin's 4-minute high sticking major that led to a pair of power play markers for the Gee-Gee's.

"Our penalty kill has been so good this year and they scored two lucky goals," stated Lakers head coach Mike McParland about the 3rd period goals against.

"I really feel we were the better team again tonight. Both nights this weekend I think we were better than our opposition. We just need more scoring and we need to eliminate power play goals against."

Kevin Rebelo appeared to have another goal for the Lakers in the middle frame but the officials felt the Lakers forward kicked the puck in.

The Lakers needed a pair of wins to secure home ice advantage in the opening round of the playoffs but that disappeared on Friday night when the Lakers lost to Carelton 4-3.

The Lakers broke a 11-game winless streak against the McGill Redmen at home last Saturday night as they won 2-1 in a shootout for what was their last regular season win.

The Lakers finish the season 14-12-2 on the season.