While Lucas Lessio was off competing for Team Ontario at the World Under-17 Hockey Challenge, the St. Michael’s Buzzers line up certainly was missing a bit of offensive punch. Picking up right where he left off though after tying for the team lead in scoring with Team Ontario, Lessio delivered that offensive punch in a big way, notching a pair of goals in his return to the Buzzers line up after missing St. Michael’s last three contests.
Buzzers’ Head Coach Mike DePellegrin felt the high level of intense competition Lessio witnessed at the U-17 tournament benefitted him significantly in his return.
“You could see him in practice when he came back this week that his feet were moving a lot quicker and he was a lot more intense in practice which is good,” said the head coach. “That is what you want brought back from experiences like that and it carried over to the game tonight. What I liked about his game the most tonight is that he didn’t cheat when we went to the 1-2-2 system. He chipped it in, chipped it out, made a lot of safe plays and was very good on the back check. That’s the sort of thing that Lucas needs to work on and he excelled at it tonight.”
St. Michael’s got off to a slow start, giving up a goal on the first Hurricanes’ shot off the stick of Kevin Balas at the 1:14 mark of the first period but netminder Joe D’Elia was able to rebound with arguably his strongest effort of the season from that point on, turning aside twenty nine of thirty two shots faced.
“I just had to throw that first goal away because I knew I really couldn’t do much about it,” said D’Elia, who recorded his seventh win of the season. “It was a three on one down low so after that I just wanted to shut the door and show these guys that I can play because right now, I’m still kind of battling it out.”
It was at least three big stops though early on in the first period with the score 1-0 in Newmarket’s favour that allowed the Buzzers to settle down and turn their play in the right direction.
“That’s your job as a goalie right, to make some big saves,” said D’Elia. “I wanted to step up for the boys today and I think I did a pretty good job of that.”
DePellegrin agreed that D’Elia played a big part in ultimately winning the game.
“D’Elia played very well tonight and this being only his second game in a long while, he’s battled back from his injury very well and he stood on his head tonight,” said DePellegrin. “We’ve got great competition in goal right now (with D’Elia and Jonathan Loparco) and that’s what you want going down the stretch.”
The Buzzers started to hit their stride midway through the first period, skating with authority and dictating the level of play while establishing a presence in the Newmarket zone. After Buzzers’ forward Dan Cameron was on the wrong end of a hard hit in the neutral zone, a scrum ensued as Kyle Morrison, Mike Capicotto and Alex Bezerra jumped in to stand up for their teammate. The result was a Buzzers’ power play and a very galvanized looking group.
Jesse Beamish tied the game soon after when he deflected in a Dan Ciampini shot from the slot on the ensuing power play. Later in the frame, Ciampini put St. Michael’s in front when he scored on a wraparound.
“I think the skirmish in the first period by the gate was probably a good thing for us even though we don’t encourage fighting, it was the first time this year that five guys stood up for each other and we showed a lot of intensity from that moment forward.”
Lucas Lessio took over in the middle frame scoring a pair of goals to put St. Michael’s into a commanding 4-1 lead. At the 6:34 mark on the power play, Jesse Beamish fed a pass across the crease which Dan Ciampini wisely let go through his reach to Lucas Lessio who was positioned behind him, fooling Hurricanes’ netminder Jimmy Sarjeant and leaving Lessio with an easy shot.
Late in the period at the 19:23 mark, Lessio slipped in behind the Hurricanes’ defence when a loose puck came to him leaving him with a clear cut breakaway from nearly the redline in. Pulling several moves on Sarjeant, Lessio finished with a backhand shot over the outstretched pad of the Hurricanes’ netminder.
“Yeah almost,” laughed Lessio, when asked if he had too much time to think on the breakaway. “I wanted to make sure it went in for sure, so I pulled a couple of dangles and a little around the world and put it in.”
The Buzzers sat back in the third period allowing Newmarket to claw back into the game with two goals from Tyler Sikura and Bowman Webster but were able to hang on despite a late push from the Hurricanes with six attackers.
