After winning nine of their last eleven games to climb back up into the middle of the pack in the West Division standings, the St. Michael’s Buzzers faced an opportunity to leapfrog both the Streetsville Derbys and Hamilton Red Wings and jump into sole possession of fifth place with a regulation win over the Red Wings on Monday. However, despite a quick start going up 2-0 early in the first period, the Buzzers never scored again and ultimately allowed the Red Wings to tie it at two goals apiece before winning nine seconds into overtime.
At the 4:37 mark of the first period, Dan Ciampini scored his thirty fifth goal of the season with a good shot high to the blocker side to beat Red Wings’ netminder Jeff Sinclair. Just over two minutes later, St. Michael’s grew their lead to two goals when Lucas Lessio tapped in a cross crease pass from Dan Ciampini.
Buzzers’ Head Coach Mike DePellegrin felt that even though his team was up 2-0 after the first period, St. Michael’s benefitted from a lethargic start by the Red Wings and was lucky to be presented with scoring opportunities early on.
“I don’t think either team played very well in the first period,” said DePellegrin. “Our compete level wasn’t there and although Hamilton was half asleep, we got a few scoring chances and we put a few in but I don’t think the score was a full reflection of us outplaying them in the first, I think it was both teams not having a very good start.”
From the second period onwards, scoring chances for the Buzzers were few and far between. Late in the middle frame, the Red Wings got on the scoreboard when Buddy Robinson swung a puck out in front of the net where it struck the skate of Buzzers’ defenseman Joe Luongo and trickled in past an unsuspecting Joe D’Elia.
Hamilton drew even with St. Michael’s at the 5:40 mark of the third period on the power play after Blake Barbieri got called for hooking. Working the puck out to the point, Conor McLoughlin got a shot through a maze of players in the slot that beat D’Elia to tie the game.
With just less than five minutes left in the game, the Buzzers went on the power play with an opportunity to retake the lead but never challenged with any kind of pressure in the offensive zone. Instead the second power play unit took the first shift and the big guns of Jesse Beamish, Lucas Lessio and Dan Ciampini never got a chance to produce any pressure. In fact, Ciampini did not get on the ice until the dying seconds of the power play.
“All night, we were cheating at different things, with line changes, with back checking, with little battles and that first unit was cheating in terms of how much ice time we wanted to give them,” said DePellegrin, when asked what led to decision of which personnel were deployed for the key man advantage situation. “For the first couple of power plays, they stayed out too long and turned the puck over late in their shifts so we gave the second unit an opportunity and for the first bit, they were moving the puck around fairly well and trying to keep it simple and get pucks to the net.”
St. Michael’s looked shaky down the stretch and were lucky to get the game to overtime to guarantee themselves at least a single point. A win in overtime was not what the Buzzers needed though as that would only have tied them with the Red Wings in the standings. In order to have its most value to the Buzzers, the game really needed to be won in regulation time.
Nevertheless in overtime, the Buzzers started two rookies up front in Mike Neville and Lucas Lessio along with a defensive pairing of Alex Bezerra and Blake Barbieri. Off the faceoff at centre ice, the puck went back of the Buzzers’ net where Bezerra turned it over. Cory Giroux collected the puck and beat D’Elia on a wrap around chance to give Hamilton a 3-2 come-from-behind win.
“I don’t think any of our six defensemen were outstanding tonight so it was just kind of a flip of a coin and we decided to put that line out,” said DePellegrin. “I think the way the puck went in, even though I didn’t see it, I heard about it from one of the players, it was kind of a testament to the way the whole night was going. We weren’t at our best tonight, we cheated and we thought things were going to come easy based on a few bounces in the first period.”
St. Michael’s now heads into a quiet stretch in the schedule with only two games in the next eighteen days. However, their next game – Friday night at St. Michael’s College School Arena against the Burlington Cougars – will be a big test to see if the solid stretch of nine wins in eleven games prior to the loss to Hamilton was a true depiction of where the team is at or if it was, in fact, just a mirage. Remember the last home meeting with the Cougars on December 4th, 2009 resulted in a 12-1 loss.
“Honestly as coaches, I don’t think we really have to say anything, I think all the guys have that date marked on their calendar, they certainly better,” said DePellegrin. “We went into Burlington and embarrassed them in their barn and they took full advantage last time against us so we better show up ready to play on Friday.”
