The North Bay Skyhawks live to see at least another 60 minutes of playoff hockey, thanks to a 3-1 victory over the Soo Indians Tuesday night at Memorial Gardens. That’s the good news.
The North Bay Skyhawks live to see at least another 60 minutes of playoff hockey, thanks to a 3-1 victory over the Soo Indians Tuesday night at Memorial Gardens. That’s the good news. The bad news is they’ll have to wait until Thursday night for game seven to see if they can advance to the finals once again, a feat they’ve accomplished in every year since their existence in the gateway city. Although the momentum has swung North Bay’s way heading into the deciding game seven, Skyhawks head coach, Darren Turcotte doesn’t want his team to get “over confident”.
“Obviously having the win we definitely have the momentum going into game seven…you don’t want to get over confident,” Turcotte said outside the Skyhawks dressing room after the game. “Everyone knows our best of seven series is now a best of one and it’s for a shot to get into the league finals”.
After a 45 minute delay to the start of the game, due to the Indians team bus breaking down near Sudbury, things got swinging full tilt once the puck was dropped. The Indians jumped out of the gate early just over five minutes into the period when Scott Pulak chipped in a loose puck in the slot over Skyhawks Goaltender Ian Wilson’s glove for the quick 1-0 Soo lead.
The lead wouldn’t last long however, as North Bay would knot things up at 1-1 almost a minute later as Kody Carnevale notched his first of two on the night, on a play where it looked as though Indians goalie Brennan Poderzay was taking a nap. With pressure in the Soo’s end and a couple missed chances to score for the Skyhawks, the puck found its way to the corner. Carnevale would simply throw the puck on net from behind the goal line in the corner and was rewarded when the rubber somehow went off Poderzay stick and over the line.
The second frame saw the Skyhawks take a 2-1 lead on the scoreboard when they worked the puck around the perimeter of the offensive zone, finding forward Joe Trotter at the point, who rifled a slap shot through traffic and into the top shelf past Poderzay.
The 2-1 lead is all North Bay would need as the Indians failed to put another puck past Wilson. North Bay would go on to add another goal in the third when Carnevale fired a weak wrist shot by Poderzay only 1:30 into the period. Things got scrappy near the conclusion of the game, in which it appeared that’s all the Soo had left, not mounting much of a fight on the offensive side, only registering 4 shots on net.
The feisty Kody Carnevale earned first star recognition for netting a pair of goals, while playing his heart out all game. While he was happy with the way he and his team played, he’s already focused on Thursday’s series finale.
“Tonight the bounces happened to go in the back of the net instead of off the goalie’s blocker and in the corner. It felt good for sure, but let’s just hope we can do it again in game seven,” Carnevale said.
North Bay was out-shot once again by the Indians by a mere 25-24 margin. With Wilson stopping all but one shot and turning in another stellar performance in which he also collected the game’s third star, Carnevale expressed how he felt about Wilson guarding the goal.
“Wilson has been fantastic for us all year, again tonight he let in one goal against an explosive offense so we can’t complain. He made a lot of big saves and bailed us out of a lot of tough spots,” Carnevale explained.
The game was played fairly evenly between the two teams, with each club having no shortage of chances for quality shots on net. Indians head coach Kevin Cain didn’t point blame, but thought it came down to Wilson stopping more shots than Poderzay.
“I didn’t think that they really outplayed us… I thought they played a lot smarter than us all game, but still nonetheless had our chances to win and to make plays to score,” Cain said.
“Their goalie stopped more shots than ours,” he added.
Other contributions to the scoreboard from the Skyhawks came from Justin Roy, who had a pair of assists, while Nick Kulas and Kyle Radigan added single helpers. The Soo’s lone goal by Scott Pulak was fed by Mike Connolly and James Ciotti.
Shane Bailey received second star honors for the Indians.
The Skyhawks now see a day’s rest before they face off against the Indians in game seven at the Big Bear arena in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, Thursday night at 7:00p.m.
With the ice surface being bigger at the Big Bear arena, the Soo should be able to utilize their speed to it’s fullest against North Bay. Carnevale doesn’t see that as being a problem for the Skyhawks.
“We’re kind of getting used to it. The coaches have done a great job analyzing their game, watching game tapes and stuff like that…they have us really well prepared. We’re pretty confident going in there that we’ll be able to handle their speed on the big ice,” Carnevale said.
“We love playing in our barn obviously, but we’re going to go up there and give it everything we’ve got,” he added.
Both teams face elimination on Thursday night, with the winner advancing to the finals for a showdown with the high scoring Sudbury Jr. Wolves. The Wolves have been waiting for an opponent in the finals since Sunday night, when they disposed of the Soo Thunderbirds 4-1 in game five.
