The St. Michael’s Buzzers had no time to recover after a dismal 12-1 loss at the hands of the Burlington Cougars on Friday night. In the Upper Canada Patriots on Sunday afternoon, the Buzzers faced a team that had played themselves to within four points of St. Michael’s for the eighth and final playoff spot in the West Division. One did not need a doctorate in physics to catch on to the significance of this head to head matchup.
Not surprisingly, St. Michael’s shook up its line up from Friday night, calling up a pair of 1994 born players from the Toronto Marlboros AAA minor midget team in Mattia Marcantuoni and Scott Laughton along with reinserting Tyler Forbes after he had missed a pair of games with an injury. In the end, it was Marcantuoni who got the Buzzers off on the right foot, opening the scoring on the power play early in the first period before playing hero with the game winner in round six of the shootout.
“Coach (DePellegrin) just told me to go out for the shootout and I did a move that I had done in a tournament,” said Marcantuoni. “I was glad it ended up working.”
Now with two goals and a shootout winner in just two career Junior A games, Marcantuoni credited his teammates in helping to make him feel comfortable to play the style of game in which he can excel at.
“A lot of the guys in the room have just told me to play my game,” added Marcantuoni. “I just try to do what they say and so far things have happened for me.”
Early in the game, Buzzers netminder Charles Williams turned aside a breakaway opportunity – the first shot he faced - to keep the game scoreless. That save, no doubt, was crucial for a Buzzers team with a psyche still very fragile from two nights earlier.
“Well we couldn’t afford to let in another first goal,” said Williams, who now has three wins, one of those a shutout, against the Patriots this season. “It’s been tough because we’ve been playing too much come-from-behind hockey lately so we needed to get the first goal ourselves. I think that save was really important.”
After Marcantuoni got St. Michael’s up 1-0 early on, Elliott Burlon grew the lead to a pair of goals when his shot from the top of the circle rebounded off Patriots’ netminder Matt O’Connor and then off defenseman Mitch Wild before ricocheting back into the net.
Upper Canada clawed back in the second period though, tying the game with two goals by the 9:41 mark. Jesse Facchini got the Patriots on the scoreboard at the 3:58 mark before a point shot on the power play from Marko Brelih found its way past a screened Charles Williams to tie the game.
Just over a minute later, Dan Ciampini – who raised his game from a physical standpoint as well as producing offensively - responded with his first of two power play goals, restoring the Buzzers’ lead heading into the second intermission.
“The guys were down and Coach (DePellegrin) said before the game, ‘the way you play is the way the team is going to feed off of you’ so I tried to give a little bit of energy in the first period and then just let myself go in the second and third and try to contribute as much as I could,” said Ciampini.
That lead did not last for long though as the Patriots tied the game early in the third period at the 4:52 mark on a power play goal from Brendan Muise followed by the go ahead goal at the 12:19 mark from Ryan Martin.
With time becoming the Buzzers biggest enemy, it was Ciampini who stepped up again to tie the game with a power play marker with just 3:45 remaining.
Overtime settled nothing with neither team generating a quality chance to potentially end the game. In the shootout, Charles Williams stopped all six shooters he faced including Nikita Poliakov, Brendan Muise, Nick Perruccio, Michael Sicilia, David Italiano and Matt Galati.
“Just like any other save in the game, you’ve got to focus on it and have confidence in yourself that you can beat the shooter,” said Williams, of his mindset as the shootout wore on.
None of Mike Hawkrigg, Lucas Lessio, Dan Ciampini, Jesse Beamish or Tyler Forbes were able to beat Matt O’Connor in the Buzzers’ first five shootout attempts.
On the sixth St. Michael’s shot, Mattia Marcantuoni tucked a shot through the five hole of O’Connor to give the Buzzers a much needed victory.
Buzzers’ Head Coach Mike DePellegrin had nothing but positive comments for the young minor midget call up.
“There’s nothing bad to say about the kid, Mattia’s a fantastic hockey player,” said DePellegrin. “He’s got a high end skill set and he fits right in here. He’s a minor midget hockey player and he comes to Junior A and he fits right in so that says enough right there. He certainly had a lot of chances during the game, but with the game on the line, that certainly shows his character and his ability to bury the puck.”
Definitely not a textbook victory for the Buzzers having twice squandered leads, DePellegrin was nevertheless pleased that his team was able to bounce back with a victory in an important game to expand their cushion over the Patriots to five points.
“I don’t think we played our best today but we won the game and at the end of the day, that was the goal,” said the head coach. “We were sloppy at times and we didn’t execute as well as we should at this point in the year but we got the two points.”
Sunday’s game against the Patriots began a crucial five game stretch for St. Michael’s that will see them take on the North York Rangers, Seguin Bruins, and the Dixie Beehives on two occasions over the next two weeks, all teams either tied with or below the Buzzers in the standings. Ciampini warned though that the standings are not always the best indictor as to what the outcome might be and that if the Buzzers are to be successful, the quality of their effort will determine their success.
“Don’t let the standings fool you, on any given night, anybody can come out and win,” said Ciampini. “We saw Newmarket take a loss to Upper Canada on Thursday and it just goes to show you it’s anybody’s game. We can’t look at it as they’re below us or we’re above them or anything like that, we just have to come out like it’s another game, we have to play our game and not stoop down to their level. I think we should give it a good run but at the same we have to keep in our head that positions in the standings not matter at all.”
